Assessing the impact of stratospheric aerosol injection on U.S.
convective weather environments
Abstract
Continued climate warming, together with the overall evaluation and
implementation of a range of climate mitigation and adaptation
approaches, has prompted increasing research into proposed solar climate
intervention (SCI) methods, such as stratospheric aerosol injection
(SAI). SAI would use aerosols to reflect a small amount of incoming
solar radiation away from Earth to stabilize or reduce future warming
due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Research into the
possible risks and benefits of SAI relative to the risks from climate
change is emerging. There is not yet, however, an adequate understanding
of how SAI might impact human and natural systems. For instance, little
to no research to date has examined how SAI might impact environmental
conditions critical to the formation of severe convective weather over
the United States (U.S.). This study uses ensembles of Earth system
model simulations of future climate change, with and without
hypothetical SAI deployment, to examine possible future changes in
thermodynamic and kinematic parameters critical to the formation of
severe weather during convectively active seasons over the U.S. Results
show that simulated forced changes in thermodynamic parameters are
significantly reduced under SAI relative to a no-SAI world, while
simulated changes in kinematic parameters are more difficult to
distinguish. Also, unforced internal climate variability is likely to
significantly modulate the projected forced climate changes over large
regions of the U.S.