Summary
This research examines the effect of SRM on South Asia, predicting it could cool the region by 0.62°C compared to standard warming models. However, the study also suggests a slight reduction in rainfall, particularly when the project first begins. While this method offers a potential temporary cooling solution, the resulting drier patterns present new risks for vulnerable nations in the region.
Abstract
Solar geoengineering (SG) is an interim solution to combat global warming, which involves scattering back a tiny fraction of theincoming sunlight. Hence, SG and its potential impacts are important to study for the identification of changing weather patternsover regions of climate vulnerable South Asia. This study explores the projected spatio-temporal patterns of two meteorologicalparameters, temperature and precipitation, under SG numerical experiment (stratospheric aerosol injection), relative to projected climate change. Furthermore, future projections of same meteorological parameters without SG under a representativeconcentration pathway (RCP 4.5) will also be studied for comparative analysis. Offsetting climate parameters are associated withmultiple risk factors. Thus, both SG and non-SG scenarios will be studied for the future time period. The results indicate that thetemperature reduces by −0.62°C under the SG G4 scenario and spatial distribution patterns of temperature also depicts an overallcooling effects during the G4 implementation (2020–2029) and continuation (2030–2069) phase. Moreover, on a regional scale, acold bias (less severe) is projected as compared to projected climate under RCP 4.5. Our findings show that, precipitation is alsoprojected to be decreased by −0.02 mm day−1 . Dry bias pattern is projected during implementation phase only. The G4 based SGcontinuation and termination (2070–2090) phases depict no drastic change in precipitation over South Asia
