Sun-reflecting crops could ease global warming

LONDON (Reuters) – Farmers could help produce cooler temperatures and limit global warming if they grow crop varieties that reflect more sunlight into space, British researchers said on Thursday.

Using a global climate model, they found this strategy could cool much of Europe, North America and parts of North Asia by up to one degree Celsius during the summer growing season, enough to make a difference in easing heat waves and drought.

It would also translate into a 20 percent reduction in a predicted five degree Celsius temperature rise for the region by the end of the century, Andy Ridgwell and colleagues said in the journal Current Biology.

“We found that different varieties of most food crops do differ in how much solar energy is reflected back to space,” Ridgwell, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

“The more energy you reflect back to space the cooler the air temperatures will be.”

Reuters