Alamou, AE;
Obada, E;
Biao, EI;
Josuézandagba, EB;
Da-Allada, CY;
Bonou, FK;
Baloïtcha, E;
... Irvine, PJ; + view all
(2022)
Impact of Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering on Meteorological Droughts in West Africa.
Atmosphere
, 13
(2)
, Article 234. 10.3390/atmos13020234.
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Abstract
This study assesses changes in meteorological droughts in West Africa under a high greenhouse gas scenario, i.e., a representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5), and under a scenario of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering (SAG) deployment. Using simulations from the Geoengineering Large Ensemble (GLENS) project that employed stratospheric sulfate aerosols injection to keep global mean surface temperature, as well as the interhemispheric and equator-to-pole temperature gradients at the 2020 level (present-day climate), we investigated the impact of SAG on meteorological droughts in West Africa. Analysis of the meteorological drought characteristics (number of drought events, drought duration, maximum length of drought events, severity of the greatest drought events and intensity of the greatest drought event) revealed that over the period from 2030–2049 and under GLENS simulations, these drought characteristics decrease in most regions in comparison to the RCP8.5 scenarios. On the contrary, over the period from 2070–2089 and under GLENS simulations, these drought characteristics increase in most regions compared to the results from the RCP8.5 scenarios. Under GLENS, the increase in drought characteristics is due to a decrease in precipitation. The decrease in precipitation is largely driven by weakened monsoon circulation due to the reduce of land–sea thermal contrast in the lower troposphere.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Impact of Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering on Meteorological Droughts in West Africa |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3390/atmos13020234 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13020234 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | stratospheric aerosol geoengineering; climate change; GLENS simulations; meteorological droughts; West Africa |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Earth Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10143483 |
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