Detecting sulphate aerosol geoengineering with different methods

Lo, Y. T.  Eunice; Charlton-Perez, Andrew J.; Lott, Fraser C.; Highwood, Eleanor J.

doi:10.1038/srep39169

Detecting sulphate aerosol geoengineering with different methods

Journal Article · Thu Dec 15 00:00:00 EST 2016 · Scientific Reports

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39169· OSTI ID:1393908

Lo, Y. T. Eunice ^[1]; Charlton-Perez, Andrew J. ^[1]; Lott, Fraser C. ^[2]; Highwood, Eleanor J. ^[1]

University of Reading, Reading (United Kingdom). Dept. of Meteorology
Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter (United Kingdom)

Sulphate aerosol injection has been widely discussed as a possible way to engineer future climate. Monitoring it would require detecting its effects amidst internal variability and in the presence of other external forcings. Here, we investigate how the use of different detection methods and filtering techniques affects the detectability of sulphate aerosol geoengineering in annual-mean global-mean near-surface air temperature. This is done by assuming a future scenario that injects 5 Tg yr^-1 of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere and cross-comparing simulations from 5 climate models. 64% of the studied comparisons would require 25 years or more for detection when no filter and the multi-variate method that has been extensively used for attributing climate change are used, while 66% of the same comparisons would require fewer than 10 years for detection using a trend-based filter. This then highlights the high sensitivity of sulphate aerosol geoengineering detectability to the choice of filter. With the same trend-based filter but a non-stationary method, 80% of the comparisons would require fewer than 10 years for detection. This does not imply sulphate aerosol geoengineering should be deployed, but suggests that both detection methods could be used for monitoring geoengineering in global, annual mean temperature should it be needed.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter (United Kingdom); University of Reading, Reading (United Kingdom)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

OSTI ID:: 1393908

Journal Information:: Scientific Reports, Journal Name: Scientific Reports Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 6; ISSN 2045-2322

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Best Scale for Detecting the Effects of Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosol Geoengineering on Surface Temperature Lo, Y. T. E.; Charlton‐Perez, Andrew J.; Highwood, Eleanor J. Earth's Future https://doi.org/10.1029/2018ef000933	journal	December 2018
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The many possible climates from the Paris Agreement’s aim of 1.5 °C warming Seneviratne, Sonia I.; Rogelj, Joeri; Séférian, Roland Nature, Vol. 558, Issue 7708 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0181-4	journal	June 2018
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