Hosepipe and balloon to mimic volcano

LONDON - There will be an unexpected sight high in the skies over the British county of Norfolk next month: a huge balloon attached to the ground by a giant hosepipe.

It isn't obvious, but it is the first small step in an experiment which aims to recreate the cooling effect of erupting volcanoes on the Earth's atmosphere.

Scientists and engineers from the universities of Bristol, Cambridge and Oxford are behind the three-year 1.6 million pound ($2.5 million) project called Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE).