Identification

Title

Stratospheric ozone response to sulfate geoengineering: Results from the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP)

Abstract

Geoengineering with stratospheric sulfate aerosols has been proposed as a means of temporarily cooling the planet, alleviating some of the side effects of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. However, one of the known side effects of stratospheric injections of sulfate aerosols under present-day conditions is a general decrease in ozone concentrations. Here we present the results from two general circulation models and two coupled chemistry-climate models within the experiments G3 and G4 of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project. On average, the models simulate in G4 an increase in sulfate aerosol surface area density similar to conditions a year after the Mount Pinatubo eruption and a decrease in globally averaged ozone by 1.1-2.1 DU (Dobson unit, 1 DU = 0.001 atm cm) during the central decade of the experiment (2040-2049). Enhanced heterogeneous chemistry on sulfate aerosols leads to an ozone increase in low and middle latitudes, whereas enhanced heterogeneous reactions in polar regions and increased tropical upwelling lead to a reduction of stratospheric ozone. The increase in UV-B radiation at the surface due to ozone depletion is offset by the screening due to the aerosols in the tropics and midlatitudes, while in polar regions the UV-B radiation is increased by 5% on average, with 12% peak increases during springtime. The contribution of ozone changes to the tropopause radiative forcing during 2040-2049 is found to be less than −0.1 W m−2. After 2050, because of decreasing ClOx concentrations, the suppression of the NOx cycle becomes more important than destruction of ozone by ClOx, causing an increase in total stratospheric ozone.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d79p32kd

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2014-03-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact