Reduced poleward transport due to stratospheric heating under geoengineering | Earth and Space Science Open Archive

[Andrew Lockley]

https://www.essoar.org/doi/abs/10.1002/essoar.10503509.1

Reduced poleward transport due to stratospheric heating under geoengineering

Authors

Daniele Visioni

iD

Isla Ruth Simpson

iD

Douglas G MacMartin

iD

Jadwiga H. Richter

Ben Kravitz

iD

Walker Lee

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Published Online:Sun, 5 Jul 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/essoar.10503509.1

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Abstract

By injecting SO2 into the stratosphere at different latitudes, it might be possible to reduce global mean surface temperature and to minimize changes in the equator-to-pole and inter-hemispheric gradients, reducing some of the impacts arising from climate change relative to equatorial SO2 injection. This can happen only if the resulting aerosols are transported to higher latitudes by the stratospheric circulation, ensuring that a greater part of the solar radiation is reflected back to space at higher latitudes, compensating for the reduced sunlight there. However, the stratospheric heating produced by these aerosols modifies the global circulation and strengthens the stratospheric polar vortex that acts as a barrier to the transport of air towards the poles. We show how this heating results in a nonlinear feedback where increasing injection rates lead to a stronger high latitudinal transport barrier. This implies a potential limitation in the high-latitude aerosol burden and subsequent high-latitude cooling.

[Andrew Lockley]

Interview with Dan about this paper on the Reviewer 2 podcast 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Ic5LLIcL0UvhBnXDQT3HE?si=nbRuQuiUSceDtaQeb11z4w

[Daniele Visioni]

And the final version of the paper just came out yesterday

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020GL089470?af=R

if anyone’s interested!

Dan