Environmental Sciences Commons^™

A Simple Model To Account For Regional Inequalities In The Effectiveness Of Solar Radiation Management, Juan B. Moreno-Cruz, Katharine L. Ricke, David W. Keith

Juan B. Moreno-Cruz

We develop a simple measure of the potential effectiveness of solar radiation management (SRM) in compensating for anthropogenic climate change and test this measure using data from an ensemble of modeling experiments conducted with a general circulation model (GCM). Assuming a linear relationship between the amounts of SRM implemented globally and the regional temperature and precipitation responses to that change, we calculate the amount of SRM that minimizes impacts using three different social objectives: egalitarian, utilitarian and ecocentric. While inequalities in the effectiveness of SRM between regions are important, they may not be as severe as is often assumed. When …