Energy & Commodities risk-off · 3–10 years
A what‑if from the future

What if a rogue nation starts solar geoengineering on its own?

Unilateral SAI is a geopolitical-crisis and agri-termination-shock story: the tradable legs are a tail-risk vol bid plus a monsoon/yield-disruption premium in grains, not a clean semis selloff. No real analogue exists; the closest reasoning rhyme is Pinatubo's 1991 eruption, which cooled the globe ~0.5C and perturbed monsoons. Forward angle: the novel risk is cross-border retaliation over weather modification — price it as geopolitical risk plus agri convexity, not a Nasdaq drawdown.

6%
our model probability
over 3–10 years
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 6% · 90% range 0–12% · 40 dated precedents behind it — a wider range means thinner evidence

Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.

The butterfly cascade

How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.

Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving

Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 3–10 years horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. A nation unilaterally begins solar geoengineering, triggering geopolitical crisis and termination-shock fears in agriculture markets. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Climate/crop supply ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Market odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-08-13.