Towards a comprehensive climate impacts assessment of solar geoengineering
Open accessAbstract
Despite a growing literature on the climate response to solar geoengineering—proposals to cool the planet by increasing the planetary albedo—there has been little published on the impacts of solar geoengineering on natural and human systems such as agriculture, health, water resources, and ecosystems. An understanding of the impacts of different scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment will be crucial for informing decisions on whether and how to deploy it. Here we review the current state of knowledge about impacts of a solar‐geoengineered climate and identify the major research gaps. We suggest that a thorough assessment of the climate impacts of a range of scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment is needed and can be built upon existing frameworks. However, solar geoengineering poses a novel challenge for climate impacts research as the manner of deployment could be tailored to pursue different objectives making possible a wide range of climate outcomes. We present a number of ideas for approaches to extend the survey of climate impacts beyond standard scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment to address this challenge. Reducing the impacts of climate change is the fundamental motivator for emissions reductions and for considering whether and how to deploy solar geoengineering. This means that the active engagement of the climate impacts research community will be important for improving the overall understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and risks presented by solar geoengineering.
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SAI's effects on temperature and precipitation distributions would likely affect agricultural systems, but the precise impacts are unknown.
“SAI's effects on temperature and precipitation distributions would likely affect agricultural systems. The precise nature of these impacts are unclear (Kortetmäki and Oksanen, 2016; Irvine et al., 2017; Svoboda et al., 2018; Pamplany et al., 2020).”
From A Fate Worse Than Warming? Stratospheric Aerosol Injection and Global Catastrophic Risk (2021) · cites this paper as Irvine et al., 2017
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References 119 · Cited by 70
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- Authors
- Irvine, P. J., Kravitz, B., Lawrence, M. G., Gerten, D., Caminade, C., Gosling, S. N., Hendy, E. J., Kassie, B. T., Kissling, W. D., Muri, H., Oschlies, A., & Smith, S. J.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (US)
- Research Institute for Sustainability at GFZ (DE)
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE)
- University of Liverpool (GB)
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- University of Bristol (GB)
- University of Florida (US)
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
- University of Oslo (NO)
- GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (DE)
- Joint Global Change Research Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Irvine, Peter J.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Earth s Future
- Publisher
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Published
- 2017-01
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 93-106
- ISSN
- 2328-4277 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2549256631
- Cited by
- 70
- References
- 119
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 4
- FWCI
- 5.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Earth s Future (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (publishedVersion)
- Bristol Research (University of Bristol) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Nottingham ePrints (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion)
- Publication Database GFZ (GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences) (submittedVersion)
- Publication Database IASS (Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RENATE (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Publication Database PIK (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Explore Bristol Research (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RENATE
- Funders
- German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)
- Brandenburg State Ministry for Science, Research and Art (MWFK)
- U.S. Department of Energy by Battelle Memorial Institute (DE-AC05-76RL01830)
- University of Amsterdam
- The Farr Institute for Health Informatics Research (MR/M0501633/1)
- Norwegian Research Council (229760/E10, 261862/E10)
- DFG (SPP 1689)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Geoengineering
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric aerosols and clouds
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Environmental Impact
- Keywords
- solar geoengineering, planetary albedo, human health, water resources, ecosystems, climate change mitigation, research gaps
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