Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering focused on the Arctic could substantially reduce local and worldwide impacts of anthropogenic global warming. Because the Arctic receives little sunlight during the winter, stratospheric aerosols present in the winter at high latitudes have little impact on the climate, whereas stratospheric aerosols present during the summer achieve larger changes in radiative forcing. Injecting SO2 in the spring leads to peak aerosol optical depth (AOD) in the summer. We demonstrate that spring injection produces approximately twice as much summer AOD as year-round injection and restores approximately twice as much September sea ice, resulting in less increase in stratospheric sulfur burden, stratospheric heating, and stratospheric ozone depletion per unit of sea ice restored. Furthermore, we also find that differences in AOD between different seasonal injection strategies are small compared to the difference between annual and spring injection.
Lee, Walker Raymond, et al. "High-Latitude Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Can Be More Effective if Injection Is Limited to Spring." Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 48, no. 9, May. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021gl092696
Lee, Walker Raymond, MacMartin, Douglas G., Visioni, Daniele, & Kravitz, Ben (2021). High-Latitude Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Can Be More Effective if Injection Is Limited to Spring. Geophysical Research Letters, 48(9). https://doi.org/10.1029/2021gl092696
Lee, Walker Raymond, MacMartin, Douglas G., Visioni, Daniele, et al., "High-Latitude Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Can Be More Effective if Injection Is Limited to Spring," Geophysical Research Letters 48, no. 9 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1029/2021gl092696
@article{osti_1811261,
author = {Lee, Walker Raymond and MacMartin, Douglas G. and Visioni, Daniele and Kravitz, Ben},
title = {High-Latitude Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Can Be More Effective if Injection Is Limited to Spring},
annote = {Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering focused on the Arctic could substantially reduce local and worldwide impacts of anthropogenic global warming. Because the Arctic receives little sunlight during the winter, stratospheric aerosols present in the winter at high latitudes have little impact on the climate, whereas stratospheric aerosols present during the summer achieve larger changes in radiative forcing. Injecting SO2 in the spring leads to peak aerosol optical depth (AOD) in the summer. We demonstrate that spring injection produces approximately twice as much summer AOD as year-round injection and restores approximately twice as much September sea ice, resulting in less increase in stratospheric sulfur burden, stratospheric heating, and stratospheric ozone depletion per unit of sea ice restored. Furthermore, we also find that differences in AOD between different seasonal injection strategies are small compared to the difference between annual and spring injection.},
doi = {10.1029/2021gl092696},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1811261},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
issn = {ISSN 0094-8276},
number = {9},
volume = {48},
place = {United States},
publisher = {American Geophysical Union},
year = {2021},
month = {05}}
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 366, Issue 1882https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2008.0132
Roberts, Andrew F.; Hunke, Elizabeth C.; Allard, Richard
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 376, Issue 2129https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2017.0344