Can solar radiation management slow Antarctic ice melt?

Parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet are vulnerable to rapid melt due to rising global temperatures. Credit: NOAA

Parts of the Antarctic ice sheet are vulnerable to rapid melting because of warming global temperatures. This melt has the potential to produce global sea level rise and widespread economic and ecologic impacts in coastal areas. A new study, supported by the Climate Program Office’s Earth’s Radiation Budget (ERB) Program, uses computer modeling to explore how solar geoengineering could slow Antarctic ice melt in the upcoming decades and centuries. ERB-funded scientists Ben Kravitz of Indiana University and Douglas MacMartin of Cornell University worked with a team of researchers to simulate deliberate cooling by injecting reflective particles into the atmosphere to deflect sunlight before it reaches Earth’s surface. This project works toward an ERB initiative to improve the representation of this method, called stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), in climate models.