ALBERT

Description: Both explosive volcanic eruptions, which emit sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, and stratospheric geoengineering via sulfur injections can potentially cool the climate by increasing the amount of scattering particles in the atmosphere. Here we employ a global aerosol-climate model and an earth system model to study the radiative and climate impacts of an erupting volcano during solar radiation management (SRM). According to our simulations, the radiative impacts of an eruption and SRM are not additive: in the simulated case of concurrent eruption and SRM, the peak increase in global forcing is about 40 % lower compared to a corresponding eruption into a clean background atmosphere. In addition, the recovery of the stratospheric sulfate burden and forcing was significantly faster in the concurrent case since the sulfate particles grew larger and thus sedimented faster from the stratosphere. In our simulation where we assumed that SRM would be stopped immediately after a volcano eruption, stopping SRM decreased the overall stratospheric aerosol load. For the same reasons, a volcanic eruption during SRM lead to only about 1/3 of the peak global ensemble-mean cooling compared to an eruption under unperturbed atmospheric conditions. Furthermore, the global cooling signal was seen only for 12 months after the eruption in the former scenario compared to over 40 months in the latter. In terms of the global precipitation rate, we obtain a 36 % smaller decrease in the first year after the eruption and again a clearly faster recovery in the concurrent eruption and SRM scenario. We also found that an explosive eruption could lead to significantly different regional climate responses depending on whether it takes place during geoengineering or into an unperturbed background atmosphere. Our results imply that observations from previous large eruptions, such as Mt Pinatubo in 1991, are not directly applicable when estimating the potential consequences of a volcanic eruption during stratospheric geoengineering.

Description: The injection of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere to form an artificial stratospheric aerosol layer is considered as an option for solar radiation management. The related reduction in radiative forcing depends upon the amount injected of sulfur dioxide but aerosol model studies indicate a decrease in forcing efficiency with increasing injection magnitude. None of these studies, however, consider injection strengths greater than 10 Tg(S) yr-1. This would be necessary to counteract the strong anthropogenic forcing expected if "business as usual" emission conditions continue throughout this century. To understand the effects of the injection of larger amounts of SO2 we have calculated the effects of SO2 injections up to 100 Tg(S) yr-1. We estimate the reliability of our results through consideration of various injection strategies, and from comparison with results obtained from other models. Our calculations show that the efficiency of the aerosol layer, expressed as the relationship between sulfate aerosol forcing and injection strength, decays exponentially. This result implies that the solar radiation management strategy required to keep temperatures constant at that anticipated for 2020, whilst maintaining "business as usual" conditions, would require atmospheric injections of the order of 45 Tg(S) yr-1 which amounts to 6 times that emitted from of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption each year.

Description: In this manuscript, we present an intercomparison of three different aerosol microphysics modules that are implemented in the climate model ECHAM5. The comparison was done between the modal aerosol microphysics module M7, which is currently the default aerosol microphysical core in ECHAM5, and two sectional aerosol microphysics modules SALSA, and SAM2. A detailed aerosol microphycical model MAIA was used as a reference model to evaluate the results of the aerosol microphysics modules with respect to sulphate aerosol. The ability of the modules to describe the development of the aerosol size distribution was tested in a zero dimensional framework. We evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches under different types of stratospheric conditions. Also, we present an improved method for the time integration in M7 and study how the setup of the modal approach affects the evolution of the aerosol size distribution. Intercomparison simulations were carried out with varying SO2 concentrations from background conditions to extreme values arising from stratospheric injections of large volcanic eruptions. Under background conditions, all microphysics modules were in good agreement describing the shape of the size distribution but the scatter between the model results increased with increasing SO2 concentrations. In particular for the volcanic case the module setups have to be redefined to be applied in global model simulations capturing respective sulphate particle formation events. Summarized, this intercomparison serves as a review on the different aerosol microphysics modules which are currently available for the climate model ECHAM5.

Description: We present a suite of new climate model experiment designs for the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP). This set of experiments, named GeoMIP6 (to be consistent with the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6), builds on the previous GeoMIP simulations, and has been expanded to address several further important topics, including key uncertainties in extreme events, the use of geoengineering as part of a portfolio of responses to climate change, and the relatively new idea of cirrus cloud thinning to allow more longwave radiation to escape to space. We discuss experiment designs, as well as the rationale for those designs, showing preliminary results from individual models when available. We also introduce a new feature, called the GeoMIP Testbed, which provides a platform for simulations that will be performed with a few models and subsequently assessed to determine whether the proposed experiment designs will be adopted as core (Tier 1) GeoMIP experiments. This is meant to encourage various stakeholders to propose new targeted experiments that address their key open science questions, with the goal of making GeoMIP more relevant to a broader set of communities.

Description: A new Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) experiment "G4 specified stratospheric aerosols" (short name: G4SSA) is proposed to investigate the impact of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering on atmospheric composition, climate, and the environment. In contrast to the earlier G4 GeoMIP experiment, which requires an emission of sulphur dioxide (SO2) into the model, a prescribed aerosol forcing file is provided to the community, to be consistently applied to future model experiments between 2020 and 2100. This stratospheric aerosol distribution, with a total burden of about 2 Tg S has been derived using the ECHAM5-HAM microphysical model, based on a continuous annual tropical emission of 8 Tg SO2 year−1. A ramp-up of geoengineering in 2020 and a ramp-down in 2070 over a period of two years are included in the distribution, while a background aerosol burden should be used for the last 3 decades of the experiment. The performance of this experiment using climate and chemistry models in a multi-model comparison framework will allow us to better understand the significance of the impact of geoengineering and the abrupt termination after 50 years on climate and composition of the atmosphere in a changing environment. The zonal and monthly mean stratospheric aerosol input dataset is available at https://www2.acd.ucar.edu/gcm/geomip-g4-specified-stratospheric-aerosol-data-set.

Description: In this manuscript, we present an intercomparison of three different aerosol microphysics modules that are implemented in the climate model ECHAM5. The comparison was done between the modal aerosol microphysics module M7, which is currently the default aerosol microphysical core in ECHAM5, and two sectional aerosol microphysics modules SALSA, and SAM2. The detailed aerosol microphysical model MAIA was used as a reference to evaluate the results of the aerosol microphysics modules with respect to sulphate aerosol. The ability of the modules to describe the development of the aerosol size distribution was tested in a zero dimensional framework. We evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches under different types of stratospheric conditions. Also, we present an improved method for the time integration in M7 and study how the setup of the modal aerosol modules affects the evolution of the aerosol size distribution. Intercomparison simulations were carried out with varying SO2 concentrations from background conditions to extreme values arising from stratospheric injections by large volcanic eruptions. Under background conditions, all microphysics modules were in good agreement describing the shape of the aerosol size distribution, but the scatter between the model results increased with increasing SO2 concentrations. In particular in the volcanic case the setups of the aerosol modules have to be adapted in order to dependably capture the evolution of the aerosol size distribution, and to perform in global model simulations. In summary, this intercomparison serves as a review of the different aerosol microphysics modules which are currently available for the climate model ECHAM5.

Description: We present a suite of new climate model experiment designs for the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP). This set of experiments, named GeoMIP6 (to be consistent with the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6), builds on the previous GeoMIP project simulations, and has been expanded to address several further important topics, including key uncertainties in extreme events, the use of geoengineering as part of a portfolio of responses to climate change, and the relatively new idea of cirrus cloud thinning to allow more longwave radiation to escape to space. We discuss experiment designs, as well as the rationale for those designs, showing preliminary results from individual models when available. We also introduce a new feature, called the GeoMIP Testbed, which provides a platform for simulations that will be performed with a few models and subsequently assessed to determine whether the proposed experiment designs will be adopted as core (Tier 1) GeoMIP experiments. This is meant to encourage various stakeholders to propose new targeted experiments that address their key open science questions, with the goal of making GeoMIP more relevant to a broader set of communities.

Description: A new Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) experiment "G4 specified stratospheric aerosols" (short name: G4SSA) is proposed to investigate the impact of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering on atmosphere, chemistry, dynamics, climate, and the environment. In contrast to the earlier G4 GeoMIP experiment, which requires an emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the model, a prescribed aerosol forcing file is provided to the community, to be consistently applied to future model experiments between 2020 and 2100. This stratospheric aerosol distribution, with a total burden of about 2 Tg S has been derived using the ECHAM5-HAM microphysical model, based on a continuous annual tropical emission of 8 Tg SO2 yr−1. A ramp-up of geoengineering in 2020 and a ramp-down in 2070 over a period of 2 years are included in the distribution, while a background aerosol burden should be used for the last 3 decades of the experiment. The performance of this experiment using climate and chemistry models in a multi-model comparison framework will allow us to better understand the impact of geoengineering and its abrupt termination after 50 years in a changing environment. The zonal and monthly mean stratospheric aerosol input data set is available at https://www2.acd.ucar.edu/gcm/geomip-g4-specified-stratospheric-aerosol-data-set.

Description: Simulations from a multi-model ensemble for the RCP4.5 climate change scenario for the 21st century, and for two solar radiation management (SRM) schemes (stratospheric sulfate injection (G3), SULF and marine cloud brightening by sea salt emission SALT) have been analysed in terms of changes in the mean and extremes of surface air temperature and precipitation. The climate engineering and termination periods are investigated. During the climate engineering period, both schemes, as intended, offset temperature increases by about 60 % globally, but are more effective in the low latitudes and exhibit some residual warming in the Arctic (especially in the case of SALT which is only applied in the low latitudes). In both climate engineering scenarios, extreme temperature changes are similar to the mean temperature changes over much of the globe. The exceptions are the mid- and high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, where high temperatures (90th percentile of the distribution) of the climate engineering period compared to RCP4.5 control period rise less than the mean, and cold temperatures (10th percentile), much more than the mean. This aspect of the SRM schemes is also reflected in simulated reduction in the frost day frequency of occurrence for both schemes. However, summer day frequency of occurrence increases less in the SALT experiment than the SULF experiment, especially over the tropics. Precipitation extremes in the two SRM scenarios act differently – the SULF experiment more effectively mitigates extreme precipitation increases over land compared to the SALT experiment. A reduction in dry spell occurrence over land is observed in the SALT experiment. The SULF experiment has a slight increase in the length of dry spells. A strong termination effect is found for the two climate engineering schemes, with large temperature increases especially in the Arctic. Globally, SULF is more effective in reducing extreme temperature increases over land than SALT. Extreme precipitation increases over land is also more reduced in SULF than the SALT experiment. However, globally SALT decreases the frequency of dry spell length and reduces the occurrence of hot days compared to SULF.

Description: The injection of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere to form an artificial stratospheric aerosol layer is discussed as an option for solar radiation management. The related reduction of radiative forcing depends upon the injected amount of sulfur dioxide, but aerosol model studies indicate a decrease in forcing efficiency with increasing injection rate. None of these studies, however, consider injection rates greater than 20 Tg(S) yr−1. But this would be necessary to counteract the strong anthropogenic forcing expected if "business as usual" emission conditions continue throughout this century. To understand the effects of the injection of larger amounts of SO2, we have calculated the effects of SO2 injections up to 100 Tg(S) yr−1. We estimate the reliability of our results through consideration of various injection strategies and from comparison with results obtained from other models. Our calculations show that the efficiency of such a geoengineering method, expressed as the ratio between sulfate aerosol forcing and injection rate, decays exponentially. This result implies that the sulfate solar radiation management strategy required to keep temperatures constant at that anticipated for 2020, while maintaining business as usual conditions, would require atmospheric injections of approximately 45 Tg(S) yr−1 (±15 % or 7 Tg(S) yr−1) at a height corresponding to 60 hPa. This emission is equivalent to 5 to 7 times the Mt. Pinatubo eruption each year.