Impact of Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering on meteorological droughts in West Africa

Using simulations from the Geoengineering Large Ensemble (GLENS) project that employed stratospheric sulfate aerosols injection to keep global mean surface temperature, as well as the interhemispheric and equator-to-pole temperature gradients at the 2020 level (present-day climate), we investigated the impact of SAG on meteorological droughts in West Africa.

Analysis of the meteorological drought characteristics (number of drought events, drought duration, maximum length of drought events, severity of the greatest drought events and intensity of the greatest drought event) revealed that over the period from 2030-2049 and under GLENS simulations, these drought characteristics decrease in most regions in comparison to the RCP8.5 scenarios. On the contrary, over the period from 2070-2089 and under GLENS simulations, these drought characteristics increase in most regions compared to the results from the RCP8.5 scenarios.