Smith, CJ orcid.org/0000-0003-0599-4633, Crook, JA orcid.org/0000-0003-1724-1479, Crook, R et al. (3 more authors) (2017) Impacts of stratospheric sulfate geoengineering on global solar photovoltaic and concentrating solar power resource. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 56. pp. 1483-1497. ISSN 1558-8432
Abstract
In recent years, the idea of geoengineering, artificially modifying the climate to reduce global temperatures, has received increasing attention due to the lack of progress in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Stratospheric sulfate injection (SSI) is a geoengineering method proposed to reduce planetary warming by reflecting a proportion of solar radiation back into space that would otherwise warm the surface and lower atmosphere. We analyze results from the HadGEM2-CCS climate model with stratospheric emissions of 10 Tg yr-1 of SO2, designed to offset global temperature rise by around 1°C. A reduction in concentrating solar power (CSP) output of 5.9% on average over land is shown under SSI compared to a baseline future climate change scenario (RCP4.5) due to a decrease in direct radiation. Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy is generally less affected as it can use diffuse radiation, which increases under SSI, at the expense of direct radiation. Our results from HadGEM2-CCS are compared to the GEOSCCM chemistry-climate model from the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP), with 5 Tg yr-1 emission of SO2. In many regions, the differences predicted in solar energy output between the SSI and RCP4.5 simulations are robust, as the sign of the changes for both the HadGEM2-CCS and GEOSCCM models agree. Furthermore, the sign of the total and direct annual mean radiation changes evaluated by HadGEM2-CCS agree with the sign of the multi-model mean changes of an ensemble of GeoMIP models over the majority of the world.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2017 American Meteorological Society. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Climate change; Radiative fluxes; Shortwave radiation; Climate models; General circulation models; Renewable energy |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemical & Process Engineering (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/I014721/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 27 Feb 2017 12:01 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 22:24 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-16-0298.1 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Meteorological Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1175/JAMC-D-16-0298.1 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:112809 |