0000000000496263
AUTHOR
T. Fan
A multi-model assessment of the efficacy of sea spray geoengineering
Abstract. Artificially increasing the albedo of marine clouds by the mechanical emission of sea spray aerosol has been proposed as a geoengineering technique to slow the warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. A previous global model study found that only modest increases and sometimes even decreases in cloud drop number (CDN) concentrations would result from plausible emission scenarios. Here we extend that work to examine the conditions under which decreases in CDN can occur, and use three independent global models to quantify maximum achievable CDN changes. We find that decreases in CDN can occur when at least three of the following conditions are met: the injected particle num…
A multi-model assessment of the impact of sea spray geoengineering on cloud droplet number
Artificially increasing the albedo of marine boundary layer clouds by the mechanical emission of sea spray aerosol has been proposed as a geoengineering technique to slow the warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. A previous global model study (Korhonen et al., 2010) found that only modest increases (< 20%) and sometimes even decreases in cloud drop number (CDN) concentrations would result from emission scenarios calculated using a windspeed dependent geoengineering flux parameterisation. Here we extend that work to examine the conditions under which decreases in CDN can occur, and use three independent global models to quantify maximum achievable CDN changes. We find that dec…