The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP)

Kravitz, Ben; Robock, Alan; Boucher, Oliviér; Schmidt, Hauke; Taylor, Karl E.; Stenchikov, Georgiy L.; Schulz, Mıchael

doi:10.1002/asl.316

Cited by 396 publications

(509 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…We make use of the G3 and G4 GeoMIP solar radiation management scenarios (39). G3 and G4 specify an injection of sulfate aerosol into the tropical lower stratosphere (altitude of 16-25 km) that either balances increases in greenhouse gas-induced radiative forcing specified by the RCP4.5 scenario (G3) or envisages a constant injection rate of 5 Tg of SO 2 per year (G4).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atlantic hurricane surge response to geoengineering

Moore

Grinsted

Guo

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Devastating floods due to Atlantic hurricanes are relatively rare events. However, the frequency of the most intense storms is likely to increase with rises in sea surface temperatures. Geoengineering by stratospheric sulfate aerosol injection cools the tropics relative to the polar regions, including the hurricane Main Development Region in the Atlantic, suggesting that geoengineering may mitigate hurricanes. We examine this hypothesis using eight earth system model simulations of climate under the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) G3 and G4 schemes that use stratospheric aerosols to reduce the radiative forcing under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 scenario. Global mean temperature increases are greatly ameliorated by geoengineering, and tropical temperature increases are at most half of those temperature increases in the RCP4.5. However, sulfate injection would have to double (to nearly 10 teragrams of SO2 per year) between 2020 and 2070 to balance the RCP4.5, approximately the equivalent of a 1991 Pinatubo eruption every 2 y, with consequent implications for stratospheric ozone. We project changes in storm frequencies using a temperature-dependent generalized extreme value statistical model calibrated by historical storm surges and observed temperatures since 1923. The number of storm surge events as big as the one caused by the 2005 Katrina hurricane are reduced by about 50% compared with no geoengineering, but this reduction is only marginally statistically significant. Nevertheless, when sea level rise differences in 2070 between the RCP4.5 and geoengineering are factored into coastal flood risk, we find that expected flood levels are reduced by about 40 cm for 5-y events and about halved for 50-y surges.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atlantic hurricane surge response to geoengineering

Moore

Grinsted

Guo

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…restoring to pre-industrial, or avoiding temperature rising above some threshold. This includes almost all SRM simulations to date, including early work [1] and both steady-state and transient experiments G1-G3 in the current GeoMIP simulations [2,3]; some recent papers have been even more explicit, using feedback to maintain a particular temperature [4,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar geoengineering to limit the rate of temperature change

MacMartin

Caldeira

Keith

2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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Solar geoengineering has been suggested as a tool that might reduce damage from anthropogenic climate change. Analysis often assumes that geoengineering would be used to maintain a constant global mean temperature. Under this scenario, geoengineering would be required either indefinitely (on societal time scales) or until atmospheric CO 2 concentrations were sufficiently reduced. Impacts of climate change, however, are related to the rate of change as well as its magnitude. We thus describe an alternative scenario in which solar geoengineering is used only to constrain the rate of change of global mean temperature; this leads to a finite deployment period for any emissions pathway that stabilizes global mean temperature. The length of deployment and amount of geoengineering required depends on the emissions pathway and allowable rate of change, e.g. in our simulations, reducing the maximum approximately 0.3°C per decade rate of change in an RCP 4.5 pathway to 0.1°C per decade would require geoengineering for 160 years; under RCP 6.0, the required time nearly doubles. We demonstrate that feedback control can limit rates of change in a climate model. Finally, we note that a decision to terminate use of solar geoengineering does not automatically imply rapid temperature increases: feedback could be used to limit rates of change in a gradual phase-out.

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“…This technique is economically and technically quite feasible and has an important advantage above other proposed schemes, as volcanic eruptions provide a natural analogue that helps to better understand and predict possible side effects (e.g. [130][131][132]). Therefore, understanding of all aspects of stratospheric aerosol microphysics [133], impact on chemical composition [134,135] of the stratosphere, stratospheric circulation [45,136], and tropospheric climate [137][138][139], which we gain from investigating climate consequences of volcanic eruptions, could be and should be employed for a feasibility assessment of solar geoengineering schemes.…”

Section: Volcanoes and Climate 441mentioning

confidence: 99%