Identification

Title

Microphysical simulations of sulfur burdens from stratospheric sulfur geoengineering

Abstract

Recent microphysical studies suggest that geoengineering by continuous stratospheric injection of SO₂ gas may be limited by the growth of the aerosols. We study the efficacy of SO₂, H₂SO₄ and aerosol injections on aerosol mass and optical depth using a three-dimensional general circulation model with sulfur chemistry and sectional aerosol microphysics (WACCM/CARMA).We find increasing injection rates of SO₂ in a narrow band around the equator to have limited efficacy while broadening the injecting zone as well as injecting particles instead of SO₂ gas increases the sulfate burden for a given injection rate, in agreement with previous work. We find that injecting H₂SO₄ gas instead of SO₂ does not discernibly alter sulfate size or mass, in contrast with a previous study using a plume model with a microphysical model. However, the physics and chemistry in aircraft plumes, which are smaller than climate model grid cells, need to be more carefully considered.We also find significant perturbations to tropospheric aerosol for all injections studied, particularly in the upper troposphere and near the poles, where sulfate burden increases by up to 100 times. This enhanced burden could have implications for tropospheric radiative forcing and chemistry. These results highlight the need to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions rather than attempt to cool the planet through geoengineering, and to further study geoengineering before it can be seriously considered as a climate intervention option.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d76w9bqx

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

2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

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