Identification

Title

Soil moisture and other hydrological changes in a stratospheric aerosol geoengineering large ensemble

Abstract

Stratospheric sulfate aerosol geoengineering has been proposed as a potential strategy to reduce the impacts of climate change. Here we investigate the impact of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering on the terrestrial hydrological cycle. We use the Geoengineering Large Ensemble, which involves a 20-member ensemble of simulations using the Community Earth System Model with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, in which sulfur dioxide (SO2) was injected into the stratosphere at four different locations, to maintain global mean surface temperature, and also the interhemispheric and equator-to-pole temperature gradients at values representative of 2020 ("baseline") under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5. In our simulations, annual mean land precipitation and evapotranspiration (ET) increase by 12% each under Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5. Under the Geoengineering Large Ensemble, the hydrological cycle is suppressed compared to the baseline, with end-of-century decreases of 1.4% (12 +/- 5 mm/year) and 3.3% (18 +/- 2 mm/year) in global mean, annual mean precipitation, and ET over land, respectively. Geoengineering effectively maintains global mean soil moisture under a high CO2 scenario, although there is significant regional variability. Summertime soil moisture is reduced by 42 +/- 11 kg/m(2) (3.5%) and 27 +/- 16 kg/m(2) (2.1%) in India and the Amazon, respectively, which is dominated by the decrease in precipitation. We also compare these regional changes in soil moisture under the Geoengineering Large Ensemble with an equatorial-only SO2 injection case and find a similar sign in residual changes, although the magnitude of the changes is larger in the equatorial run.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7dv1p21

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

2019-12-16T00:00:00Z

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