Geoengineering as a design problem
Understanding the climate impacts of solar geoengineering is essential for evaluating its benefits and risks. Most previous simulations have prescribed a particular strategy and evaluated its modeled effects. Here we turn this approach around by first choosing example climate objectives and then designing a strategy to meet those objectives in climate models. There are four essential criteria for designing a strategy: (i) an explicit specification of the objectives, (ii) defining what climate forcing agents to modify so the objectives are met, (iii) a method for managing uncertainties, and (iv) independent verification of the strategy in an evaluation model. We demonstrate this design perspective through two multi-objective examples. First, changes in Arctic temperature and the position of tropical precipitation due to CO2 increases are offset by adjusting high-latitude insolation in each hemisphere independently. Second, three different latitude-dependent patterns of insolation are modified to offset CO2-induced changes in global mean temperature, interhemispheric temperature asymmetry, and the Equator-to-pole temperature gradient. In both examples, the "design" and "evaluation" models are state-of-the-art fully coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1326137
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-111779; 400403809
- Journal Information:
- Earth System Dynamics (Online), Vol. 7, Issue 2; ISSN 2190-4987
- Publisher:
- European Geosciences Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Expanding the design space of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering to include precipitation-based objectives and explore trade-offs
Comparing surface and stratospheric impacts of geoengineering with different SO2 injection strategies