EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Climate intervention on a high-emissions pathway could delay but not prevent West Antarctic Ice Sheet demise

J. Sutter (), A. Jones, T. L. Frölicher, C. Wirths and T. F. Stocker
Additional contact information
J. Sutter: University of Bern
A. Jones: Met Office
T. L. Frölicher: University of Bern
C. Wirths: University of Bern
T. F. Stocker: University of Bern

Nature Climate Change, 2023, vol. 13, issue 9, 951-960

Abstract: Abstract Solar radiation modification (SRM) is increasingly discussed as a tool to reduce or avert global warming and concomitantly the risk of ice-sheet collapse, as is considered possible for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Here we analyse the impact of stratospheric aerosol injections on the centennial-to-millennial Antarctic sea-level contribution using an ice-sheet model. We find that mid-twenty-first-century large-scale SRM could delay but ultimately not prevent WAIS collapse in a high-emissions scenario. On intermediate-emissions pathways, SRM could be an effective tool to delay or even prevent an instability of WAIS if deployed by mid-century. However, SRM interventions may be associated with substantial risks, commitments and unintended side effects; therefore, emissions reductions to prevent WAIS collapse seem to be the more practical and sensible approach at the current stage.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01738-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:13:y:2023:i:9:d:10.1038_s41558-023-01738-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01738-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:13:y:2023:i:9:d:10.1038_s41558-023-01738-w