Abstract
Consideration of solar geoengineering as a potential response to climate change will demand complex decisions. These include not only the choice to deploy or not, but decisions regarding how to deploy, and ongoing decision making throughout deployment. However, relatively little attention has been paid to envisioning what a solar geoengineering deployment would look like in order to clarify what types of decisions would need to be made. We examine the science of geoengineering to ask how it might influence governance considerations, while consciously refraining from making specific recommendations. The focus here is on a hypothetical deployment (and beyond) rather than research governance. Geoengineering can be designed to trade off different outcomes, requiring an explicit specification of multivariate goals. Thus, we initially consider the complexity surrounding a decision to deploy. Next, we discuss the on-going decisions that would be needed across multiple time-scales. Some decisions are inherently slow, limited by detection and attribution of climate effects in the presence of natural variability. However, there is also a need for decisions that are inherently fast relative to political time-scales: effectively managing some uncertainties would require frequent adjustments to the geoengineered forcing in response to observations. We believe that this exercise can lead to greater clarity in terms of future governance needs by articulating key characteristics of a hypothetical deployment scenario.
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Notes
- 1.
This chapter is based on D.G. MacMartin et al.: Technical characteristics of a solar geoengineering deployment and implications for governance, Climate Policy (2019).
- 2.
E.g., J. Rogelj et al.: Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 °C, 534 Nature 534 (2016), see also IPCC: Global warming of 1.5C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty (2018)
- 3.
From D. G. MacMartin, K. L. Ricke and D. W. Keith: Solar geoengineering as part of an overall strategy for meeting the 1.5 °C Paris target, phil. Trans. Royal Soc. A (2018), see also T. M. L. Wigley: A combined mitigation/geoengineering approach to climate stabilization, Science 314 (2006); J. C. S. Long and J. G. Shepherd: The strategic value of geoengineering research, Global Environmental Change 1 (2014). For more quantitative assessments of overshoot scenarios see K. L. Ricke, R. J. Millar and D. G. MacMartin: Constraints on global temperature target overshoot, Scientific Reports 7 (2017) and MacMartin, Ricke and Keith (2018).
- 4.
P. J. Crutzen: Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections: A Contribution to Resolve a Policy Dilemma?, Climatic Change 77 (2006); National Academy of Sciences: Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth, 2015.
- 5.
See for example D. G. MacMartin et al.: Geoengineering with stratospheric aerosols: what don’t we know after a decade of research?, Earth’s Future 4 (2016).
- 6.
E.g., D. W. Keith and P. J. Irvine: Solar geoengineering could substantially reduce climate risks – A research hypothesis for the next decade, Earth’s Future 4 (2016).
- 7.
See e.g., J. Reynolds: Solar geoengineering to reduce climate change: A review of governance proposals, Proc. Royal Soc. A, 475 (2019), E. A. Parson: Climate engineering in global climate governance: Implications for participation and linkage, Transnational Environmental Law (2013); E. A. Parson and L. N. Ernst: International governance of climate engineering, Theoretical Inquiries in Law 14 (2013); Steve Rayner et al.: The Oxford Principles, Climatic Change 121 (2013); D. Bodansky: The who, what, and wherefore of geoengineering governance, Climatic Change 121 (2013); Scott Barrett: Solar Geoengineering’s Brave New World: Thoughts on the Governance of an Unprecedented Technology, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 8(2) (2014); J. B. Horton and J. L. Reynolds: The International Politics of Climate Engineering: A Review and Prospectus for International Relations, International Studies Review 18 (2016); Jesse L. Reynolds: Climate Engineering and International Law, D. A. Farber and M. Peeters (eds.): Forthcoming in Climate Change Law, Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law, vol. 1, 2016.
- 8.
UNFCCC: Adoption of the Paris Agreement, Available at https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf, 2015.
- 9.
B. Kirtman et al.: Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013, Fig 11.25.
- 10.
E.g., B. Kravitz et al.: Climate model response from the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP), J. Geophys. Res. 118 (2013). See also P. Irvine et al.: Halving warming with idealized solar geoengineering moderates key climate hazards, Nature Climate Change, 9 (2019).
- 11.
See e.g., G. Pitari et al.: Stratospheric ozone response to sulfate geoengineering: Results from the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP), J. Geophys. Res. A 119(5) (2014).
- 12.
D. G. MacMartin et al.: Management of trade-offs in geoengineering through optimal choice of nonuniform radiative forcing, Nature Climate Change 3 (2013); B. Kravitz et al.: Geoengineering as a Design Problem, Earth Systems Dynamics 7 (2016); D. G. MacMartin et al.: The climate response to stratospheric aerosol geoengineering can be tailored using multiple injection locations, J. Geophys. Res. A 122 (2017); B. Kravitz et al.: First simulations of designing stratospheric sulfate aerosol geoengineering to meet multiple simultaneous climate objectives, J. Geophys. Res. A 122 (2017), MacMartin and Kravitz: The engineering of climate engineering, Annual Rev. Control, Robotics & Auton. Systems (2019).
- 13.
D. G. MacMartin et al.: Dynamics of the coupled human-climate system resulting from closed-loop control of solar geoengineering, Clim. Dyn. 43(1–2) (2014); B. Kravitz et al.: Explicit feedback and the management of uncertainty in meeting climate objectives with solar geoengineering, Env. Res. Lett. 9(4) (2014); Kravitz et al.: Geoengineering as a Design Problem (supra note 16); Kravitz et al.: First simulations of designing stratospheric sulfate aerosol geoengineering to meet multiple simultaneous climate objectives (supra note 16).
- 14.
E.g., C. S. Holling: Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management, 1978; R. Chris: Systems Thinking for Geoengineering Policy: How to Reduce the Threat of Dangerous Climate Change by Embracing Uncertainty and Failure, 2015.
- 15.
D.G. MacMartin et al.: Timescale for detecting the climate response to stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, J. Geophys. Res. A 124 (2019)
- 16.
Discussed for example in K. L. Ricke, M. Granger Morgan and M. R. Allen: Regional climate response to solar-radiation management, Nature Geoscience 3 (2010).
- 17.
MacMartin et al.: The climate response to stratospheric aerosol geoengineering can be tailored using multiple injection locations (supra note 15); Z. Dai, D. Weisenstein and D. W. Keith: Tailoring meridional and seasonal radiative forcing by sulfate aerosol solar geoengineering, Geophys. Res. Lett. (2018). See also MacMartin and Kravitz: The engineering of climate engineering, (supra note 16).
- 18.
Based on simulations described in S. Tilmes et al.: Sensitivity of aerosol distribution and climate response to stratospheric SO2 injection locations, J. Geophys. Res. A. 122 (2017).
- 19.
J. M. Haywood et al.: Asymmetric forcing from stratospheric aerosols impacts Sahelian rainfall, Nature Climate Change 2013; Kravitz et al.: Geoengineering as a Design Problem (supra note 16).
- 20.
D. Visioni et al., Seasonal injection strategies for stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, Geophys. Res. Lett., 46, (2019).
- 21.
J. Latham: Control of Global Warming?, Nature 347 (1990). Spraying salt aerosols into boundary layer clouds is expected, in the right locations and under the right meteorological conditions, to result in more reflective clouds, but the method is currently less well understood than stratospheric aerosol injection.
- 22.
See Kravitz et al.: Geoengineering as a Design Problem (supra note 16).
- 23.
See Article 2, Adoption of the Paris Agreement (supra note 12)
- 24.
Kravitz et al.: Geoengineering as a Design Problem (supra note 16); Kravitz et al.: First simulations of designing stratospheric sulfate aerosol geoengineering to meet multiple simultaneous climate objectives (supra note 16).
- 25.
e.g., D. W. Keith and D. G. MacMartin: A temporary, moderate and responsive scenario for solar geoengineering, Nature Climate Change 5 (2015).
- 26.
See D. G. MacMynowski, H.-J. Shin and K. Caldeira: The frequency response of temperature and precipitation in a climate model, Geophys. Res. Lett. 38 (2011) and discussion in A. Robock et al.: Studying geoengineering with natural and anthropogenic analogs, Climatic Change 121(3) (2013).
- 27.
As in D. G. MacMartin, K. Caldeira and D. W. Keith: Solar geoengineering to limit rates of change, phil. Trans. Royal Soc. A 372 (2014).
- 28.
MacMartin and Kravitz, Mission-driven research for stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, Proc. Nat. Ac. Sci. (2019).
- 29.
See for example MacMartin et al.: Geoengineering with stratospheric aerosols: what don’t we know after a decade of research? (supra note 9).
- 30.
Robock et al.: Studying geoengineering with natural and anthropogenic analogs (supra note 30).
- 31.
D. W. Keith, R. Duren and D. G. MacMartin: Field experiments on solar geoengineering: report of a workshop exploring a representative research portfolio, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 372 (2014); J. A. Dykema et al.: Stratospheric-controlled perturbation experiment: a small-scale experiment to improve understanding of the risks of solar geoengineering, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 372 (2014).
- 32.
D. G. MacMynowski et al.: Can we test geoengineering?, Energy Environ. Sci. 4 (2011).
- 33.
MacMartin and Kravitz, Mission-driven research for stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, (supra note 32), Robock et al.: A test for geoengineering?, Science 327 (2010).
- 34.
MacMartin et al.: Timescale for detecting the climate response to stratospheric aerosol geoengineering (supra note 19).
- 35.
Holling: Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management (supra note 18).
- 36.
H. J. Schellnhuber & J. Kropp: Geocybernetics: Controlling a Complex Dynamical System Under Uncertainty, Naturwissenschaften 85 (1998).
- 37.
That is, the efficacy is uncertain; e.g., D. G. MacMartin, B. Kravitz and P. J. Rasch: On solar geoengineering and climate uncertainty, Geophys. Res. Lett. 42 (2015).
- 38.
A. Jarvis and D. Leedal: The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP): A control perspective, Atm. Sci. Lett. 13 (32012).
- 39.
MacMartin et al.: Dynamics of the coupled human-climate system resulting from closed-loop control of solar geoengineering (supra note 17).
- 40.
Kravitz et al.: Explicit feedback and the management of uncertainty in meeting climate objectives with solar geoengineering (supra note 17).
- 41.
Kravitz et al.: Geoengineering as a Design Problem (supra note 16).
- 42.
Kravitz et al.: First simulations of designing stratospheric sulfate aerosol geoengineering to meet multiple simultaneous climate objectives (supra note 16).
- 43.
MacMartin et al.: Dynamics of the coupled human-climate system resulting from closed-loop control of solar geoengineering (supra note 17).
- 44.
See, e.g., A. Laakso et al.: Radiative and climate impacts of a large volcanic eruption during stratospheric sulfur geoengineering, Atmos. Chem. Phys. 16 (2016).
- 45.
Haywood et al.: Asymmetric forcing from stratospheric aerosols impacts Sahelian rainfall (supra note 23).
- 46.
MacMartin, Caldeira and Keith: Solar geoengineering to limit rates of change (supra note 27).
- 47.
If deployment was abruptly terminated, the temperature would rise rapidly to roughly the value it would have been had solar geoengineering never been started, with likely severe consequences. See, e.g., Trisos et al.: Potentially dangerous consequences for biodiversity of solar geoengineering implementation and termination, Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2 (2018).
- 48.
Kirtman et al.: Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability (supra note 12), Box 11.2.
- 49.
S. C. Herring et al. (eds.): Explaining extreme events of 2017 from a climate perspective, Bulletin Am. Met. Soc. 100, 2019.
- 50.
Kravitz et al.: First simulations of designing stratospheric sulfate aerosol geoengineering to meet multiple simultaneous climate objectives (supra note 16).
- 51.
M. Meinshausen et al.: The RCP Greenhouse Gas Concentrations and their Extension from 1765 to 2300, Climatic Change 109 (2011).
- 52.
Using the region defined by K. Dagon and D. P. Schrag: Regional climate variability under model simulations of solar geoengineering, J. Geophysical Research A 122 (2017).
- 53.
Cheng et al.: Soil moisture and other hydrological changes in a stratospheric aerosol geoengineering large ensemble, J. Geophysical Research A 124 (2019)
- 54.
B. Szerszynski et al.: Why Solar Radiation Management Geoengineering and Democracy Won’t Mix, Environment and Planning A 45(12) (2013).
- 55.
J. Horton et al.: Solar geoengineering and democracy, Global Env. Politics 18 (2018).
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MacMartin, D.G., Irvine, P.J., Kravitz, B., Horton, J.B. (2021). Characteristics of a Solar Geoengineering Deployment: Considerations for Governance. In: Burns, W., Dana, D., Nicholson, S.J. (eds) Climate Geoengineering: Science, Law and Governance. AESS Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72372-9_2
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