Changes in clouds and thermodynamics under solar geoengineering and implications for required solar reduction

Russotto, Rick D.; Ackerman, Thomas P.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11905-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11905-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP):...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11905-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 16

Research article

|

21 Aug 2018

Research article |

| 21 Aug 2018

Changes in clouds and thermodynamics under solar geoengineering and implications for required solar reduction

Rick D. Russotto and Thomas P. Ackerman

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11905-2018-supplement

Model code and software

Analysis code for paper: Changes in clouds and thermodynamics under solar geoengineering and implications for required solar reduction R. Russotto https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1328272

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Short summary

In simulations with different climate models in which the strength of the Sun is reduced to cancel the surface warming from a quadrupling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, low cloud cover decreases, high cloud cover increases, the upper troposphere and stratosphere cool, and water vapor concentration decreases. The stratospheric cooling and low cloud reduction result in more sunlight reduction being needed than originally thought.