Articles | Volume 11, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-673-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-673-2020
Research article
 | 
31 Jul 2020
Research article |  | 31 Jul 2020

Climate engineering to mitigate the projected 21st-century terrestrial drying of the Americas: a direct comparison of carbon capture and sulfur injection

Yangyang Xu, Lei Lin, Simone Tilmes, Katherine Dagon, Lili Xia, Chenrui Diao, Wei Cheng, Zhili Wang, Isla Simpson, and Lorna Burnell

Data sets

Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Large Ensemble Project GLENS http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/projects/community-projects/GLENS/

Model code and software

CESM Simulations to study climate under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C targets CESM http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/experiments/1.5-2.0-targets.html

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Short summary
Two geoengineering schemes to mitigate global warming, (a) capturing atmospheric CO2 and (b) injecting stratospheric sulfur gas, are compared. Based on two sets of large-ensemble model experiments, we show that sulfur injection will effectively mitigate projected terrestrial drying over the Americas, and the mitigation benefit will emerge more quickly than with carbon capture. Innovative means of sulfur injection should continue to be explored as one potential low-cost climate solution.
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