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 SO2in 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. We also find that differences in AOD between different seasonal injection strategies are small compared to the difference between annual and spring injection.
Simulations of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering have typically considered injections at a constant rate over the entire year. However, the seasonal variability of both sunlight and the stratospheric circulation suggests seasonally dependent injection strategies. We simulated single‐point injections of the same amount of SO2in each of the four seasons and at five different latitudes (30°S, 15°S, equator, 15°N, and 30°N), 5 km above the tropopause. Our findings suggest that injecting only during one season reduces the amount of SO2needed to achieve a certain aerosol optical depth, thus potentially reducing some of the side effects of geoengineering. We find, in particular, that injections at 15°N or 15°S in spring of the corresponding hemisphere results in the largest reductions in incoming solar radiation. Compared to annual injections, by injecting in the different seasons we identify additional distinct spatiotemporal aerosol optical depth patterns, thanks to seasonal differences in the stratospheric circulation.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1818759
- PAR ID:
- 10360095
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Volume:
- 46
- Issue:
- 13
- ISSN:
- 0094-8276
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 7790-7799
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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