Opinion: The scientific and community-building roles of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) – past, present, and future
Geoengineering News
The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) is a coordinating framework, started in 2010, that includes a series of standardized climate model experiments aimed at understanding the physical processes and projected impacts of solar geoengineering. Numerous experiments have been conducted, and numerous more have been proposed as “test-bed” experiments, spanning a variety of geoengineering techniques aimed at modifying the planetary radiation budget: stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, surface albedo modification, cirrus cloud thinning, and sunshade mirrors. To date, more than 100 studies have been published that used results from GeoMIP simulations. Here we provide a critical assessment of GeoMIP and its experiments.
We discuss its successes and missed opportunities, for instance in terms of which experiments elicited more interest from the scientific community and which did not, and the potential reasons why that happened. We also discuss the knowledge that GeoMIP has contributed to the field of geoengineering research and climate science as a whole: what have we learned in terms of intermodel differences, robustness of the projected outcomes for specific geoengineering methods, and future areas of model development that would be necessary in the future? We also offer multiple examples of cases where GeoMIP experiments were fundamental for international assessments of climate change.
Finally, we provide a series of recommendations, regarding both future experiments and more general activities, with the goal of continuously deepening our understanding of the effects of potential geoengineering approaches and reducing uncertainties in climate outcomes, important for assessing wider impacts on societies and ecosystems. In doing so, we refine the purpose of GeoMIP and outline a series of criteria whereby GeoMIP can best serve its participants, stakeholders, and the broader science community.
Source: European Geosciences Union
Stephen Salter
Hi All
The 2023 update date of GeoMIP project given at the recent EGU at https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5149-2023
gives a useful account of work so far. However I hope that the next one will take account of the now excellent accuracy and likely further improvements in short and medium term weather forecasting. While the GeoMIP use of the same salt injection patterns, usually between latitudes 30N and 30S for several different climate models all year round, is useful for understanding differences between models it does not make use of the mobility of spray vessels designed for marine cloud brightening allowing seasonal migration to benefit from the increase of solar input in polar summers. The latest hydrofoil vessels can move very fast when they are not spraying and the cost prediction is low enough to have lots of vessels prepositioned on standby.
The cooling effect from marine cloud brightening depends on solar input, initial nuclei concentration, depth of the turbulent boundary layer and time to the next rainfall. These give a very wide range of results, at least one order of magnitude. With real time input data from satellites and the increased power of quantum computing it will be possible to forecast these variables for increasingly long times ahead. This will allow us to rank possible spray patterns in merit order. The ideal result might be to choose spray regions where there has just been recent rain to clean the air followed by a lengthy period of clear skies to give a lower aerosol dose over a wider area followed by movement of the treated air mass to a region of higher humidity needed for cloud production.
We will be able to compare results of various spray plans and cherry-pick those most likely to give beneficial results according to regional needs at that time.
Stephen Salter
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
School of Engineering
University of Edinburgh
Mayfield Road
Edinburgh EH9 3DW
Scotland
0131 662 1180
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