Towards a comprehensive climate impacts assessment of solar geoengineering

• Published in: Earth's future Vol. 5; no. 1; pp. 93 - 106
• Main Authors: Irvine, Peter J., Kravitz, Ben, Lawrence, Mark G., Gerten, Dieter, Caminade, Cyril, Gosling, Simon N., Hendy, Erica J., Kassie, Belay T., Kissling, W. Daniel, Muri, Helene, Oschlies, Andreas, Smith, Steven J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA Wiley Periodicals, Inc 01.01.2017; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• Subjects: Aerosols; Agricultural ecosystems; Agricultural resources; Agriculture; Albedo; Carbon dioxide; Climate change; climate engineering; climate impacts; Emissions; Emissions control; Environmental assessment; Environmental changes; Environmental impact; Geoengineering; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Hydrology; Interdisciplinary research; ISI-MIP; Outdoor air quality; solar radiation management; Water resources
• ISSN: 2328-4277; 2328-4277
• DOI: 10.1002/2016EF000389

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. Key Points The paucity of climate impacts studies on solar geoengineering is a key missing link in the interdisciplinary research on this topic The climate impacts community can use existing tools and datasets to assess many solar geoengineering effects on natural and human systems Solar geoengineering could be tailored to produce different climate outcomes demanding innovative approaches to impacts assessment Plain Language Summary Solar geoengineering, a set of ideas to cool the planet by reflecting away light, could offer a way to reduce the impacts of climate change as a complement to cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. Many studies in recent years have looked at how solar geoengineering could change the climate but little work has been done on how it would affect the impacts of climate change, e.g. to study its effects on water resources, crops, and ecosystems. We show how the tools and approaches used to understand the impacts of climate change could be directly applied to understand the impacts of solar geoengineering. However, solar geoengineering could be done in a wide range of different ways and the climate impacts of solar geoengineering would depend on how it was done which poses a novel challenge for climate impacts research. We therefore suggest some ways forward for climate impacts research that would help to address this challenge. The evidence is clear that solar geoengineering can't replace cutting emissions of greenhouse gases as it can't reverse all their harmful effects. However, future climate impacts research would help us understand whether it could help reduce the risks of climate change.