Impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency
Solar geoengineering refers to a range of proposed methods for counteracting global warming by artificially reducing sunlight at Earth’s surface. The most widely known solar geoengineering proposal is stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which has impacts analogous to those from volcanic eruptions...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Nature Publishing Group
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/118294 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-2082 |
| _version_ | 1826188659170213888 |
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| author | Jones, Anthony C. Haywood, James M. Dunstone, Nick Hawcroft, Matthew K. Hodges, Kevin I. Jones, Andy Emanuel, Kerry Andrew |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Global Change Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Global Change Science Jones, Anthony C. Haywood, James M. Dunstone, Nick Hawcroft, Matthew K. Hodges, Kevin I. Jones, Andy Emanuel, Kerry Andrew |
| author_sort | Jones, Anthony C. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Solar geoengineering refers to a range of proposed methods for counteracting global warming by artificially reducing sunlight at Earth’s surface. The most widely known solar geoengineering proposal is stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which has impacts analogous to those from volcanic eruptions. Observations following major volcanic eruptions indicate that aerosol enhancements confined to a single hemisphere effectively modulate North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) activity in the following years. Here we investigate the effects of both single-hemisphere and global SAI scenarios on North Atlantic TC activity using the HadGEM2-ES general circulation model and various TC identification methods. We show that a robust result from all of the methods is that SAI applied to the southern hemisphere would enhance TC frequency relative to a global SAI application, and vice versa for SAI in the northern hemisphere. Our results reemphasise concerns regarding regional geoengineering and should motivate policymakers to regulate large-scale unilateral geoengineering deployments. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:02:44Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/118294 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:02:44Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1182942022-09-23T10:32:40Z Impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency Jones, Anthony C. Haywood, James M. Dunstone, Nick Hawcroft, Matthew K. Hodges, Kevin I. Jones, Andy Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Global Change Science Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Solar geoengineering refers to a range of proposed methods for counteracting global warming by artificially reducing sunlight at Earth’s surface. The most widely known solar geoengineering proposal is stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which has impacts analogous to those from volcanic eruptions. Observations following major volcanic eruptions indicate that aerosol enhancements confined to a single hemisphere effectively modulate North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) activity in the following years. Here we investigate the effects of both single-hemisphere and global SAI scenarios on North Atlantic TC activity using the HadGEM2-ES general circulation model and various TC identification methods. We show that a robust result from all of the methods is that SAI applied to the southern hemisphere would enhance TC frequency relative to a global SAI application, and vice versa for SAI in the northern hemisphere. Our results reemphasise concerns regarding regional geoengineering and should motivate policymakers to regulate large-scale unilateral geoengineering deployments. 2018-10-01T13:53:09Z 2018-10-01T13:53:09Z 2017-11 2017-03 2018-09-21T16:09:06Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2041-1723 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/118294 Jones, Anthony C. et al. “Impacts of Hemispheric Solar Geoengineering on Tropical Cyclone Frequency.” Nature Communications 8, 1 (November 2017): 1382 © 2017 Authors https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-2082 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/S41467-017-01606-0 Nature Communications Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Nature Publishing Group Nature |
| spellingShingle | Jones, Anthony C. Haywood, James M. Dunstone, Nick Hawcroft, Matthew K. Hodges, Kevin I. Jones, Andy Emanuel, Kerry Andrew Impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency |
| title | Impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency |
| title_full | Impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency |
| title_fullStr | Impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency |
| title_full_unstemmed | Impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency |
| title_short | Impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency |
| title_sort | impacts of hemispheric solar geoengineering on tropical cyclone frequency |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/118294 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-2082 |
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