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Cited by 146Atmospheric aerosols and cloudsClimate Change and GeoengineeringMeteorological Phenomena and Simulations

Why cirrus cloud seeding cannot substantially cool the planet

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Gasparini, Blaž, Lohmann, Ulrike·2016·Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
DOI 10.1002/2015jd024666
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Abstract

The net warming effect of cirrus clouds has driven part of the geoengineering research toward the idea of decreasing their occurrence frequency by seeding them with efficient ice nucleating particles. We study responses of cirrus clouds to simplified global seeding strategies in terms of their radiative fluxes with the help of the ECHAM‐HAM general circulation model. Our cirrus scheme takes into account the competition between homogeneous and heterogeneous freezing, preexisting ice crystals, and the full spectrum of updraft velocities. While we find that the cirrus cloud radiative effect evaluated from our model is positive and large enough (5.7 W/m 2) to confirm their geoengineering potential, none of the seeding strategies achieves a significant cooling due to complex microphysical mechanisms limiting their climatic responses. After globally uniform seeding is applied, we observe an increase in cirrus cloud cover, a decrease in ice crystal number concentration, and a decrease in ice crystal radius. An analysis of their respective radiative contributions points to the ice crystal radius decrease as the main factor limiting seeding effectiveness.

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  • Modeling indicates that excessive INP can lead to cirrus overseeding, producing numerous small ice crystals that slow fall speeds, prolong cirrus lifetime, increasing optical thickness, and ultimately reduce outgoing longwave radiation, diminishing cooling.

    “Modeling indicates that excessive INP can lead to cirrus overseeding, producing numerous small ice crystals that slow fall speeds, prolong cirrus lifetime, increasing optical thickness, and ultimately reduce outgoing longwave radiation, diminishing cooling (Gasparini & Lohmann, 2016; Tully et al., 2022)”

    From Past Field Experiments of Solar Radiation Modification: A Review of the Scientific and Technical Aspects for Governance (2026) · cites this paper as Gasparini & Lohmann, 2016

    Section 3.3 (page unavailable) reports that high seeding-INP concentrations reduce cooling and, above 1 INP/L, produce net warming. The Introduction links smaller ice crystals to slower sedimentation, longer-lived cirrus, and greater longwave absorption. But the paper does not establish the claimed full overseeding sequence: its reported seeding results include a decrease, not an increase, in ice-crystal number concentration, and it does not report increased optical thickness from excessive INP. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • For CCT/MCT, key unknowns involve the efficacy of ice-nucleating particles in cirrus formation zones.

    “For CCT/MCT, key unknowns involve the efficacy of ice-nucleating particles in cirrus formation zones”

    From Past Field Experiments of Solar Radiation Modification: A Review of the Scientific and Technical Aspects for Governance (2026) · cites this paper as Gasparini & Lohmann, 2016

    The Model section seeds ice-supersaturated, ascending regions, and the paper examines how effectively ice-nucleating particles alter cirrus. Its Additional information section acknowledges large uncertainties in cirrus observations and modeling, but it does not specifically identify the efficacy of the particles themselves in cirrus formation zones as a key unknown; the Seeding Results instead assume all seeded particles can nucleate ice above a specified humidity. (LLM, conf=0.78)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Authors
Gasparini, B., & Lohmann, U.
Affiliations
ETH Zurich (CH)
Corresponding author
Gasparini, Blaž
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Published
2016-05-12
Volume
121
Issue
9
Pages
4877-4893
ISSN
  • 0148-0227 (ISSN-L)
  • 2169-897X
  • 2169-8996
DOI
10.1002/2015jd024666
OpenAlex
W2345205671
Cited by
146
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 40 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 2
FWCI
5.69
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • ETH Zürich Research Collection
Funders
Branco Weiss Fellowship – Society in Science
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric aerosols and clouds
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Geoengineering
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations
Keywords
cirrus clouds, cloud seeding, geoengineering, solar radiation management, ice nucleating particles, cloud radiative effects, ice crystal microphysics, ice crystal number concentration, ice crystal size, cloud cover, updraft velocity, global climate model simulation

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