Identification

Title

Sensitivity of aerosol distribution and climate response to stratospheric SO2 injection locations

Abstract

Injection of SO2 into the stratosphere has been proposed as a method to, in part, counteract anthropogenic climate change. So far, most studies investigated injections at the equator or in a region in the tropics. Here we use Community Earth System Model version 1 Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (CESM1(WACCM)) to explore the impact of continuous single grid point SO2 injections at seven different latitudes and two altitudes in the stratosphere on aerosol distribution and climate. For each of the 14 locations, 3 different constant SO2 emission rates were tested to identify linearity in aerosol burden, aerosol optical depth, and climate effects. We found that injections at 15 degrees N and 15 degrees S and at 25km altitude have equal or greater effect on radiation and surface temperature than injections at the equator. Nonequatorial injections transport SO2 and sulfate aerosols more efficiently into middle and high latitudes and result in particles of smaller effective radius and larger aerosol burden in middle and high latitudes. Injections at 15 degrees S produce the largest increase in global average aerosol optical depth and increase the change in radiative forcing per TgSO(2)/yr by about 15% compared to equatorial injections. High-altitude injections at 15 degrees N produce the largest reduction in global average temperature of 0.2 degrees per TgS/yr for the last 7years of a 10year experiment. Injections at higher altitude are generally more efficient at reducing surface temperature, with the exception of large equatorial injections of at least 12TgSO(2)/yr. These findings have important implications for designing a strategy to counteract global climate change.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7bg2rm0

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-12-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact