Abstract Earth system models are powerful tools to simulate the climate response to hypothetical climate intervention strategies, such as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). Recent simulations of SAI implement a tool from control theory, called a controller, to determine the quantity of aerosol to inject into the stratosphere to reach or maintain specified global temperature targets, such as limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre‐industrial temperatures. This work explores how internal (unforced) climate variability can impact controller‐determined injection amounts using the Assessing Responses and Impacts of Solar climate intervention on the Earth system with Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (ARISE‐SAI) simulations. Since the ARISE‐SAI controller determines injection amounts by comparing global annual‐mean surface temperature to predetermined temperature targets, internal variability that impacts temperature can impact the total injection amount as well. Using an offline version of the ARISE‐SAI controller and data from Earth system model simulations, we quantify how internal climate variability and volcanic eruptions impact injection amounts. While idealized, this approach allows for the investigation of a large variety of climate states without additional simulations and can be used to attribute controller sensitivities to specific modes of internal variability.
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This content will become publicly available on January 1, 2026
Impacts on Indian Agriculture Due To Stratospheric Aerosol Intervention Using Agroclimatic Indices
Abstract Climate change poses significant threats to global agriculture, impacting food quantity, quality, and safety. The world is far from meeting crucial climate targets, prompting the exploration of alternative strategies such as stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI) to reduce the impacts. This study investigates the potential impacts of SAI on rice and wheat production in India, a nation highly vulnerable to climate change given its substantial dependence on agriculture. We compare the results from the Assessing Responses and Impacts of Solar climate intervention on the Earth system with Stratospheric Aerosol Injection‐1.5°C (ARISE‐SAI‐1.5) experiment, which aims to keep global average surface air temperatures at 1.5°C above preindustrial in the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 2‐4.5 (SSP2‐4.5) global warming scenario. Yield results show ARISE‐SAI‐1.5 leads to higher production for rainfed rice and wheat. We use 10 agroclimatic indices during the vegetative, reproductive, and ripening stages to evaluate these yield changes. ARISE‐SAI‐1.5 benefits rainfed wheat yields the most, compared to rice, due to its ability to prevent rising winter and spring temperatures while increasing wheat season precipitation. For rice, SSP2‐4.5 leads to many more warm extremes than the control period during all three growth stages and may cause a delay in the monsoon. ARISE‐SAI‐1.5 largely preserves monsoon rainfall, improving yields for rainfed rice in most regions. Even without the use of SAI, adaptation strategies such as adjusting planting dates could offer partial relief under SSP2‐4.5 if it is feasible to adjust established rice‐wheat cropping systems.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2017113
- PAR ID:
- 10581250
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Geophysical Union
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earth's Future
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2328-4277
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract. Solar climate intervention using stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) has been proposed as a method which could offset some of the adverse effects of global warming. The Assessing Responses and Impacts of Solar climate intervention on the Earth system with Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (ARISE-SAI) set of simulations is based on a moderate-greenhouse-gas-emission scenario and employs injection of sulfur dioxide at four off-equatorial locations using a control algorithm which maintains the global-mean surface temperature at 1.5 K above pre-industrial conditions (ARISE-SAI-1.5), as well as the latitudinal gradient and inter-hemispheric difference in surface temperature. This is the first comparison between two models (CESM2 and UKESM1) applying the same multi-target SAI strategy. CESM2 is successful in reaching its temperature targets, but UKESM1 has considerable residual Arctic warming. This occurs because the pattern of temperature change in a climate with SAI is determined by both the structure of the climate forcing (mainly greenhouse gases and stratospheric aerosols) and the climate models' feedbacks, the latter of which favour a strong Arctic amplification of warming in UKESM1. Therefore, research constraining the level of future Arctic warming would also inform any hypothetical SAI deployment strategy which aims to maintain the inter-hemispheric and Equator-to-pole near-surface temperature differences. Furthermore, despite broad agreement in the precipitation response in the extratropics, precipitation changes over tropical land show important inter-model differences, even under greenhouse gas forcing only. In general, this ensemble comparison is the first step in comparing policy-relevant scenarios of SAI and will help in the design of an experimental protocol which both reduces some known negative side effects of SAI and is simple enough to encourage more climate models to participate.more » « less
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