Climate engineering of vegetated land for hot extremes mitigation: An Earth system model sensitivity study

Various climate engineering schemes have been proposed as a way to curb anthropogenic climate change. Land climate engineering schemes aiming to reduce the amount of solar radiation absorbed at the surface by changes in land surface albedo have been considered in a limited number of investigations. However, global studies on this topic have generally focused on the impacts on mean climate rather than extremes. Here we present the results of a series of transient global climate engineering sensitivity experiments performed with the Community Earth System Model over the time period 1950–2100 under historical and Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenarios. Four sets of experiments are performed in which the surface albedo over snow-free vegetated grid points is increased respectively by 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, and 0.20. The simulations show a preferential cooling of hot extremes relative to mean temperatures throughout the Northern midlatitudes during boreal summer under the late twentieth century conditions. Two main mechanisms drive this response: On the one hand, a stronger efficacy of the albedo-induced radiative forcing on days with high incoming shortwave radiation and, on the other hand, enhanced soil moisture-induced evaporative cooling during the warmest days relative to the control simulation due to accumulated soil moisture storage and reduced drying. The latter effect is dominant in summer in midlatitude regions and also implies a reduction of summer drought conditions. It thus constitutes another important benefit of surface albedo modifications in reducing climate change impacts. The simulated response for the end of the 21st century conditions is of the same sign as that for the end of the twentieth century conditions but indicates an increasing absolute impact of land surface albedo increases in reducing mean and extreme temperatures under enhanced greenhouse gas forcing.