Abstract
Solar radiation management could be used to offset some or all anthropogenic radiative forcing, with the goal of reducing some of the associated climatic change1,2. However, the degree of compensation will vary, with residual climate changes larger in some regions than others. Similarly, the insolation reduction that best compensates climate changes in one region may not be the same as for another, leading to concerns about equity3. Here we show that optimizing the latitudinal and seasonal distribution of solar reduction can improve the fidelity with which solar radiation management offsets anthropogenic climate change. Using the HadCM3L general circulation model, we explore several trade-offs. First, residual temperature and precipitation changes in the worst-off region can be reduced by 30% relative to uniform solar reduction, with only a modest impact on global root-mean-square changes; this has implications for moderating regional inequalities. Second, the same root-mean-square residual climate changes can be obtained with up to 30% less insolation reduction, implying that it may be possible to reduce solar radiation management side-effects and risks (for example, ozone depletion if stratospheric sulphate aerosols are used). Finally, allowing spatial and temporal variability increases the range of trade-offs to be considered, raising the question of how to weight different objectives.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Keith, D. Geoengineering the climate: History and prospect. Annu. Rev. Energ. Environ. 25, 245–284 (2000).
Crutzen, P. J. Albedo enhancement by stratospheric sulfur injections: A contribution to resolve a policy dilemma? Climatic Change 77, 211–219 (2006).
Moreno-Cruz, J., Ricke, K. & Keith, D. W. A simple model to account for regional inequalities in the effectiveness of solar radiation management. Climatic Change 110, 649–668 (2011).
Govindasamy, B. & Caldeira, K. Geoengineering Earth’s radiation balance to mitigate CO2-induced climate change. Geophys. Res. Lett. 27, 2141–2144 (2000).
Rasch, P. J., Crutzen, P. J. & Coleman, D. B. Exploring the geoengineering of climate using stratospheric sulfate aerosols: The role of particle size. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L02809 (2008).
Caldeira, K. & Wood, L. Global and Arctic climate engineering: Numerical model studies. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 366, 4039–4056 (2008).
Lunt, D. J., Ridgwell, A., Valdes, P. J. & Seale, A. Sunshade World: A fully coupled GCM evaluation of the climatic impacts of geoengineering. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L12710 (2008).
Robock, A., Oman, L. & Stenchikov, G. Regional climate responses to geoengineering with tropical and Arctic SO2 injections. J. Geophys. Res. 113, D16101 (2008).
Ricke, K. L., Granger Morgan, M. & Allen, M. R. Regional climate response to solar-radiation management. Nature Geosci. 3, 537–541 (2010).
Bala, G., Duffy, P. B. & Taylor, K. E. Impact of geoengineering schemes on the global hydrological cycle. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 7664–7669 (2008).
Ban-Weiss, G. A. & Caldeira, K. Geoengineering as an optimization problem. Environ. Res. Lett. 5, 034009 (2010).
Dong, B., Gregory, J. M. & Sutton, R. T. Understanding land-sea warming contrast in response to increased greenhouse gases. Part I: Transient adjustment. J. Clim. 22, 3079–3097 (2009).
MacMynowski, D. G., Shin, H-J. & Caldeira, K. The frequency response of temperature and precipitation in a climate model. Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L16711 (2011).
Nordhaus, W. A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies (Yale Univ. Press, 2008).
Weitzman, M. What is the damages function for global warming—and what difference might it make? Clim. Change Econom. 1, 57–69 (2010).
Jones, C. A fast ocean GCM without flux adjustments. J. Atm. Oceanic Tech. 20, 1857–1868 (2003).
English, J. M., Toon, O. B. & Mills, M. J. Microphysical simulations of sulfur burdens from stratospheric sulfur geoengineering. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 12, 4775–4793 (2012).
Keith, D. W. Photophoretic levitation of engineered aerosols for geoengineering. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 16428–16431 (2010).
Giorgi, F. & Francisco, R. Uncertainties in regional climate change prediction: A regional analysis of ensemble simulations with the HADCM2 coupled AOGCM. Clim. Dynam. 16, 169–182 (2000).
The Royal Society Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty (Royal Society, 2009).
Kravitz, B. et al. The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP). Atmos. Sci. Lett. 12, 162–167 (2011).
Holland, M. M., Serreze, M. C. & Stroeve, J. The sea ice mass budget of the Arctic and its future change as simulated by coupled climate models. Clim. Dynam. 34, 185–200 (2010).
Boe, J. L., Hall, A. & Qu, X. September sea-ice cover in the Arctic Ocean projected to vanish by 2100. Nature Geosci. 2, 341–343 (2009).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
D.G.M. and D.W.K. conceived the project, D.G.M. carried out the analysis with contributions from B.K. All authors wrote the paper.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information (PDF 1689 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
MacMartin, D., Keith, D., Kravitz, B. et al. Management of trade-offs in geoengineering through optimal choice of non-uniform radiative forcing. Nature Clim Change 3, 365–368 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1722
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1722
This article is cited by
-
Uncertainty and the basis for confidence in solar geoengineering research
Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (2020)
-
A continuous latitudinal energy balance model to explore non-uniform climate engineering strategies
Climate Dynamics (2019)
-
Emerging risk governance for stratospheric aerosol injection as a climate management technology
Environment Systems and Decisions (2019)
-
Rich man’s solution? Climate engineering discourses and the marginalization of the Global South
International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics (2019)
-
Evaluating climate geoengineering proposals in the context of the Paris Agreement temperature goals
Nature Communications (2018)