Andrew Ross and H Damon Matthews 2009 Environ. Res. Lett. 4 045103 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/045103
Andrew Ross1 and H Damon Matthews
Show affiliationsPart of Focus on Climate Engineering: Intentional Intervention in the Climate System
Recent research has highlighted risks associated with the use of climate engineering as a method of stabilizing global temperatures, including the possibility of rapid climate warming in the case of abrupt removal of engineered radiative forcing. In this study, we have used a simple climate model to estimate the likely range of temperature changes associated with implementation and removal of climate engineering. In the absence of climate engineering, maximum annual rates of warming ranged from 0.015 to 0.07 °C/year, depending on the model's climate sensitivity. Climate engineering resulted in much higher rates of warming, with the temperature change in the year following the removal of climate engineering ranging from 0.13 to 0.76 °C. High rates of temperature change were sustained for two decades following the removal of climate engineering; rates of change of 0.5 (0.3,0.1) °C/decade were exceeded over a 20 year period with 15% (75%, 100%) likelihood. Many ecosystems could be negatively affected by these rates of temperature change; our results suggest that climate engineering in the absence of deep emissions cuts could arguably constitute increased risk of dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system under the criteria laid out in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
92.70.Aa Abrupt/rapid climate change
92.60.hf Tropospheric composition and chemistry, constituent transport and chemistry
Issue 4 (October-December 2009)
Received 4 May 2009, accepted for publication 14 August 2009
Published 30 October 2009
Andrew Ross and H Damon Matthews 2009 Environ. Res. Lett. 4 045103
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