On 19 September 2021, Heri Kuswanto and his team published the first scientific paper on SRM from Indonesia and from the entire region of Southeast Asia. It investigates how SRM could affect temperatures and humidity over Indonesia. Climate change is projected to increase extreme temperatures in tropical regions such as Indonesia, but few studies have explored whether SRM could reduce or compound this impact.
This study, entitled “Impact of Solar Geoengineering on Temperatures over the Indonesian Maritime Continent” and published in the International Journal of Climatology, concluded that SRM could significantly reduce mean and extreme temperatures compared to a warmed world (at least in the scenario they studied: the GeoMIP G4 experiment). The team noted that the impacts of both warming and SRM varied across the islands of Indonesia, highlighting the significant uncertainties that would need to be reduced to better understand the socio-political impacts of using—or rejecting—SRM.
The study also concludes that SRM could be effective at reducing the likelihood of events where wet bulb temperature—a key indicator of heat-related health risks—exceeds 27°C.
The team led by Prof. Kuswanto is based at the University of Surabaya in Indonesia and conducted this study in collaboration with research collaborators Ben Kravitz and John Moore. This is yet another major milestone for the Degrees Modelling Fund and for the evaluation of SRM. Congratulations to the authors!