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The climate effects of increasing ocean albedo: an idealized representation of solar geoengineering
Citation
Kravitz, B and Rasch, PJ and Wang, H and Robock, A and Gabriel, C and Boucher, O and Cole, JNS and Haywood, J and Ji, D and Jones, A and Lenton, A and Moore, JC and Muri, H and Niemeier, U and Phipps, S and Schmidt, H and Watanabe, S and Yang, S and Yoon, J-H, The climate effects of increasing ocean albedo: an idealized representation of solar geoengineering, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 18 pp. 13097-13113. ISSN 1680-7316 (2018) [Refereed Article]
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DOI: doi:10.5194/acp-18-13097-2018
Abstract
Geoengineering, or climate intervention, describes
methods of deliberately altering the climate system to offset
anthropogenic climate change. As an idealized representation
of near-surface solar geoengineering over the ocean,
such as marine cloud brightening, this paper discusses experiment
G1 ocean-albedo of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison
Project (GeoMIP), involving an abrupt quadrupling
of the CO2 concentration and an instantaneous increase
in ocean albedo to maintain approximate net top-of atmosphere
radiative flux balance. A total of 11 Earth system
models are relatively consistent in their temperature, radiative
flux, and hydrological cycle responses to this experiment.
Due to the imposed forcing, air over the land surface
warms by a model average of 1.14 K, while air over most
of the ocean cools. Some parts of the near-surface air temperature
over ocean warm due to heat transport from land to
ocean. These changes generally resolve within a few years,
indicating that changes in ocean heat content play at most a
small role in the warming over the oceans. The hydrological
cycle response is a general slowing down, with high heterogeneity
in the response, particularly in the tropics. While
idealized, these results have important implications for marine
cloud brightening, or other methods of geoengineering
involving spatially heterogeneous forcing, or other general
forcings with a strong land–ocean contrast. It also reinforces
previous findings that keeping top-of-atmosphere net radiative flux constant is not sufficient for preventing changes in
global mean temperature.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | geoengineering, climate models, ocean, Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project, GeoMIP |
| Research Division: | Earth Sciences |
| Research Group: | Atmospheric Sciences |
| Research Field: | Climate Change Processes |
| Objective Division: | Environment |
| Objective Group: | Climate and Climate Change |
| Objective Field: | Climate Change Mitigation Strategies |
| Author: | Phipps, S (Dr Steven Phipps) |
| ID Code: | 128758 |
| Year Published: | 2018 |
| Deposited By: | Oceans and Cryosphere |
| Deposited On: | 2018-10-10 |
| Last Modified: | 2018-10-11 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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