The inclusion of water with the injected aerosol reduces the simulated effectiveness of marine cloud brightening

A. K.L. Jenkins; P. M. Forster

doi:10.1002/asl2.434

The inclusion of water with the injected aerosol reduces the simulated effectiveness of marine cloud brightening

A. K.L. Jenkins^*, P. M. Forster

^*Corresponding author for this work

Mathematics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Sea-salt aerosols proposed for injection in marine cloud brightening geoengineering would likely result from evaporation of sea-water droplets. Previous simulations have omitted this mechanism. Using the WRF/Chem model (Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry) in large-eddy simulation mode, we find that droplet evaporation creates cold pools, suppressing initial aerosol plume heights by up to 30% (40m). This lessens cloud albedo increases from 94.1 to 88.5% in our weakly-precipitating case and from 4.3 to 1.4% for daytime injection into our nonprecipitating case (cloud albedo differences of 0.012 and 0.009, respectively). Inclusion of this effect in future modelling would allow increasingly realistic effectiveness estimates.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	164-169
Number of pages	6
Journal	Atmospheric Science Letters
Volume	14
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/asl2.434
Publication status	Published - Jul 2013

Keywords

Cloud seeding
Cold pools
Geoengineering
Large-eddy simulation
Marine cloud brightening
Marine stratocumulus
WRF/Chem

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10.1002/asl2.434

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title = "The inclusion of water with the injected aerosol reduces the simulated effectiveness of marine cloud brightening",

abstract = "Sea-salt aerosols proposed for injection in marine cloud brightening geoengineering would likely result from evaporation of sea-water droplets. Previous simulations have omitted this mechanism. Using the WRF/Chem model (Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry) in large-eddy simulation mode, we find that droplet evaporation creates cold pools, suppressing initial aerosol plume heights by up to 30% (40m). This lessens cloud albedo increases from 94.1 to 88.5% in our weakly-precipitating case and from 4.3 to 1.4% for daytime injection into our nonprecipitating case (cloud albedo differences of 0.012 and 0.009, respectively). Inclusion of this effect in future modelling would allow increasingly realistic effectiveness estimates.",

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author = "Jenkins, {A. K.L.} and Forster, {P. M.}",

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AU - Jenkins, A. K.L.

AU - Forster, P. M.

PY - 2013/7

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N2 - Sea-salt aerosols proposed for injection in marine cloud brightening geoengineering would likely result from evaporation of sea-water droplets. Previous simulations have omitted this mechanism. Using the WRF/Chem model (Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry) in large-eddy simulation mode, we find that droplet evaporation creates cold pools, suppressing initial aerosol plume heights by up to 30% (40m). This lessens cloud albedo increases from 94.1 to 88.5% in our weakly-precipitating case and from 4.3 to 1.4% for daytime injection into our nonprecipitating case (cloud albedo differences of 0.012 and 0.009, respectively). Inclusion of this effect in future modelling would allow increasingly realistic effectiveness estimates.

AB - Sea-salt aerosols proposed for injection in marine cloud brightening geoengineering would likely result from evaporation of sea-water droplets. Previous simulations have omitted this mechanism. Using the WRF/Chem model (Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry) in large-eddy simulation mode, we find that droplet evaporation creates cold pools, suppressing initial aerosol plume heights by up to 30% (40m). This lessens cloud albedo increases from 94.1 to 88.5% in our weakly-precipitating case and from 4.3 to 1.4% for daytime injection into our nonprecipitating case (cloud albedo differences of 0.012 and 0.009, respectively). Inclusion of this effect in future modelling would allow increasingly realistic effectiveness estimates.

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KW - Geoengineering

KW - Large-eddy simulation

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KW - Marine stratocumulus

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JO - Atmospheric Science Letters

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The inclusion of water with the injected aerosol reduces the simulated effectiveness of marine cloud brightening

Abstract

Keywords

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