Response of the Southern Hemisphere extratropical cyclone climatology to climate intervention with stratospheric aerosol injection

Abstract

Little is known about how climate intervention through stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) may affect the climatology of the Southern Hemisphere extratropical cyclones under warming scenarios. To address this knowledge gap, we tracked extratropical cyclones from 2015 to 2099 in a set of projections of three international projects: the Assessing Responses and Impacts of Solar Climate Intervention on the Earth System with Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (ARISE), the Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Large Ensemble (GLENS), and the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP/G6sulfur). Comparisons were performed between no-SAI and SAI scenarios as well as between different timeslices and their reference period (2015–2024). Among the findings, both no-SAI and SAI project a decrease in cyclone frequency towards the end of the century although weaker under SAI scenarios. On the other hand, cyclones tend to be stronger under no-SAI scenarios while keeping their intensity more similar to the reference period under SAI scenarios. This means that under SAI scenarios the climatology of cyclones is less affected by global warming than under no-SAI. Other features of these systems, such as travelling distance, lifetime, and mean velocity show small differences between no-SAI and SAI scenarios and between reference and future periods.

Keywords

• stratospheric aerosol injection
• solar radiation modification
• extratropical cyclones
• future projections
• Southern Hemisphere