Effects of stratospheric sulfate aerosol geo‐engineering on cirrus clouds
Open accessAbstract
Cooling the Earth through the injection of sulphate into the stratosphere is one of the most discussed geo‐engineering (GE) schemes. Stratospheric aerosols can sediment into the troposphere, modify the aerosol composition and thus might impact cirrus clouds. We use a global climate model with a physically based parametrization for cirrus clouds in order to investigate possible microphysical and dynamical effects. We find that enhanced stratospheric aerosol loadings as proposed by several GE approaches will likely lead to a reduced ice crystal nucleation rate and thus optically thinner cirrus clouds. These optically thinner cirrus clouds exert a strong negative cloud forcing in the long‐wave which contributes by 60% to the overall net GE forcing. This shows that indirect effects of stratospheric aerosols on cirrus clouds may be important and need to be considered in order to estimate the maximum cooling derived from stratospheric GE.
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Aerosols used in solar geoengineering may impact cirrus cloud formation once they descend into the upper troposphere.
“Aerosols used in SG may impact cirrus cloud formation once they descend into the upper troposphere 37,38 .”
From Experimental reaction rates constrain estimates of ozone response to calcium carbonate geoengineering (2020) · cites this paper as [37]
The sulfate efficacy value used falls towards the center of the values present across recent literature.
“This sulfate efficacy value differs from that used in Smith and Wagner (2018) (which considered only incoming radiation) and falls towards the center of the values present across recent literature (Ferraro et al 2012, Pope et al 2012, Kuebbeler et al 2012, Pitari et al 2014, Kleinschmitt et al 2017, Dai et al 2018).”
From The cost of stratospheric aerosol injection through 2100 (2020) · cites this paper as Kuebbeler et al 2012
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References 36 · Cited by 101
- Authors
- Kuebbeler, M., Lohmann, U., & Feichter, J.
- Affiliations
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (DE)
- ORCID
- Lohmann, Ulrike
- Venue
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Publisher
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Published
- 2012-12-04
- Volume
- 39
- Issue
- 23
- ISSN
- 0094-8276 (ISSN-L)
- 1944-8007
- OpenAlex
- W1514009377
- Cited by
- 101
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 4.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Geophysical Research Letters (publishedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- ETH Zürich Research Collection
- Funders
- International Center on Nonviolent Conflict
- Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
- 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 › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
- Keywords
- stratospheric sulfate aerosols, solar geoengineering, cirrus clouds, ice crystal nucleation, cloud optical thickness, longwave cloud forcing, aerosol-cloud interactions, global cooling, aerosol sedimentation
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