Solar irradiance reduction via climate engineering: Impact of different techniques on the energy balance and the hydrological cycle

Niemeier, Ulrike; Schmidt, Hauke; Alterskjær, Kari; Kristjansson, J. E.

doi:10.1002/2013jd020445

Cited by 157 publications

(216 citation statements)

References 68 publications

(77 reference statements)

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“…First, MAECHAM5-HAM-SALSA was used to define the stratospheric aerosol fields and optical properties in several volcanic eruption and SRM scenarios. Following the approach introduced in Timmreck et al (2010) and Niemeier et al (2013), these parameters were then applied in the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) in order to study their effects on the temperature and precipitation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Earlier studies (Bala et al, 2008;Kravitz et al, 2013a, b;Niemeier et al, 2013) have already shown that geoengineering leads to a reduction in the global precipitation compared to the climate without geoengineering. In our SRM simulation, we obtain a precipitation reduction of 0.11 mm day −1 (2.8 %), which is clearly larger than the impact after the volcanic eruption.…”

Section: Climate Effects From Concurrent Volcanic Eruption and Srm -Rmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Radiative and climate impacts of a large volcanic eruption during stratospheric sulfur geoengineering

et al. 2016

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Abstract. Both explosive volcanic eruptions, which emit sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, and stratospheric geoengineering via sulfur injections can potentially cool the climate by increasing the amount of scattering particles in the atmosphere. Here we employ a global aerosol-climate model and an Earth system model to study the radiative and climate changes occurring after an erupting volcano during solar radiation management (SRM). According to our simulations the radiative impacts of the eruption and SRM are not additive and the radiative effects and climate changes occurring after the eruption depend strongly on whether SRM is continued or suspended after the eruption. In the former case, the peak burden of the additional stratospheric sulfate as well as changes in global mean precipitation are fairly similar regardless of whether the eruption takes place in a SRM or non-SRM world. However, the maximum increase in the global mean radiative forcing caused by the eruption is approximately 21 % lower compared to a case when the eruption occurs in an unperturbed atmosphere. In addition, the recovery of the stratospheric sulfur burden and radiative forcing is significantly faster after the eruption, because the eruption during the SRM leads to a smaller number and larger sulfate particles compared to the eruption in a non-SRM world. On the other hand, if SRM is suspended immediately after the eruption, the peak increase in global forcing caused by the eruption is about 32 % lower compared to a corresponding eruption into a clean background atmosphere. In this simulation, only about one-third of the global ensemble-mean cooling occurs after the eruption, compared to that occurring after an eruption under unperturbed atmospheric conditions. Furthermore, the global cooling signal is seen only for the 12 months after the eruption in the former scenario compared to over 40 months in the latter. In terms of global precipitation rate, we obtain a 36 % smaller decrease in the first year after the eruption and again a clearly faster recovery in the concurrent eruption and SRM scenario, which is suspended after the eruption. We also found that an explosive eruption could lead to significantly different regional climate responses depending on whether it takes place during geoengineering or into an unperturbed background atmosphere. Our results imply that observations from previous large eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in 1991, are not directly applicable when estimating the potential consequences of a volcanic eruption during stratospheric geoengineering.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Climate Effects From Concurrent Volcanic Eruption and Srm -Rmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiative and climate impacts of a large volcanic eruption during stratospheric sulfur geoengineering

et al. 2016

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“…Aswathy et al (2015) and Niemeier et al (2013) compared stratospheric sulfur aerosol injections to the brightening of marine clouds in terms of the hydrological cycle and extremes in temperatures and precipitation. Crook et al (2015) compared the three methods used in this study, but restricted the study to temperatures and precipitation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate engineering and the ocean: effects on biogeochemistry and primary production

2017

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Abstract. Here we use an Earth system model with interactive biogeochemistry to project future ocean biogeochemistry impacts from the large-scale deployment of three different radiation management (RM) climate engineering (also known as geoengineering) methods: stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), marine sky brightening (MSB), and cirrus cloud thinning (CCT). We apply RM such that the change in radiative forcing in the RCP8.5 emission scenario is reduced to the change in radiative forcing in the RCP4.5 scenario. The resulting global mean sea surface temperatures in the RM experiments are comparable to those in RCP4.5, but there are regional differences. The forcing from MSB, for example, is applied over the oceans, so the cooling of the ocean is in some regions stronger for this method of RM than for the others. Changes in ocean net primary production (NPP) are much more variable, but SAI and MSB give a global decrease comparable to RCP4.5 ( ∼ 6 % in 2100 relative to , while CCT gives a much smaller global decrease of ∼ 3 %. Depending on the RM methods, the spatially inhomogeneous changes in ocean NPP are related to the simulated spatial change in the NPP drivers (incoming radiation, temperature, availability of nutrients, and phytoplankton biomass) but mostly dominated by the circulation changes. In general, the SAI-and MSB-induced changes are largest in the low latitudes, while the CCT-induced changes tend to be the weakest of the three. The results of this work underscore the complexity of climate impacts on NPP and highlight the fact that changes are driven by an integrated effect of multiple environmental drivers, which all change in different ways. These results stress the uncertain changes to ocean productivity in the future and advocate caution at any deliberate attempt at large-scale perturbation of the Earth system.

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“…1a). This injection strategy corresponds to the injection scenarios in most previous studies, although they have used different widths for the injection area (Heckendorn et al, 2009;Jones et al, 2016;Niemeier et al, 2011;Pierce et al, 2010;Pope et al, 2012;Tilmes et al, 2015). In the Northern Hemisphere (NH) scenario, sulfur was injected only in the Northern Hemisphere between latitudes 10 and 30 • N (Fig.…”

Section: Fixed Injection Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiative and climate effects of stratospheric sulfur geoengineering using seasonally varying injection areas

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Stratospheric sulfur injections have often been suggested as a cost-effective geoengineering method to prevent or slow down global warming. In geoengineering studies, these injections are commonly targeted to the Equator, where the yearly mean intensity of the solar radiation is the highest and from where the aerosols disperse globally due to the Brewer-Dobson Circulation. However, compensating for greenhouse gas-induced zonal warming by reducing solar radiation would require a relatively larger radiative forcing to the mid-and high latitudes and a lower forcing to the low latitudes than what is achieved by continuous equatorial injections. In this study we employ alternative aerosol injection scenarios to investigate if the resulting radiative forcing can be targeted to be zonally more uniform without decreasing the global the mean radiative forcing of stratospheric sulfur geoengineering. We used a global aerosol-climate model together with an Earth system model to study the radiative and climate effects of stratospheric sulfur injection scenarios with different injection areas. According to our simulations, varying the SO 2 injection area seasonally would result in a similar global mean cooling effect as injecting SO 2 to the Equator, but with a more uniform zonal distribution of shortwave radiative forcing. Compared to the case of equatorial injections, in the seasonally varying injection scenario where the maximum sulfur production from injected SO 2 followed the maximum of solar radiation, the shortwave radiative forcing decreased by 27 % over the Equator (the latitudes between 20 • N and 20 • S) and increased by 15 % over higher latitudes. Compared to the continuous injections to the Equator, in summer months the radiative forcing was increased by 17 and 14 % and in winter months decreased by 14 and 16 % in Northern and Southern hemispheres, respectively. However, these forcings do not translate into as large changes in temperatures. The changes in forcing would only lead to 0.05 K warmer winters and 0.05 K cooler summers in the Northern Hemisphere, which is roughly 3 % of the cooling resulting from solar radiation management scenarios studied here.

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Solar irradiance reduction via climate engineering: Impact of different techniques on the energy balance and the hydrological cycle

Cited by 157 publications

References 68 publications

Radiative and climate impacts of a large volcanic eruption during stratospheric sulfur geoengineering

Radiative and climate impacts of a large volcanic eruption during stratospheric sulfur geoengineering

Climate engineering and the ocean: effects on biogeochemistry and primary production

Radiative and climate effects of stratospheric sulfur geoengineering using seasonally varying injection areas

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