https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024EF005269
*Authors* Brendan Clark, Alan Robock, Lili Xia, Sam S. Rabin, Jose R. Guarin, Gerrit Hoogenboom, Jonas Jägermeyr First published: *06 February 2025* https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF005269 *Abstract* As the severity of climate change and its associated impacts continue to worsen, schemes for artificially cooling surface temperatures via planetary albedo modification are being studied. The method with the most attention in the literature is stratospheric sulfate aerosol intervention (SAI). Placing reflective aerosols in the stratosphere would have profound impacts on the entire Earth system, with potentially far-reaching societal impacts. How global crop productivity would be affected by such an intervention strategy is still uncertain, and existing evidence is based on theoretical experiments or isolated modeling studies that use crop models missing key processes associated with SAI that affect plant growth, development, and ultimately yield. Here, we utilize three global gridded process-based crop models to better understand the potential impacts of one SAI scenario on global maize productivity. Two of the crop models that simulate diffuse radiation fertilization show similar, yet small increases in global maize productivity from increased diffuse radiation. Three crop models show diverse responses to the same climate perturbation from SAI relative to the reference future climate change scenario. We find that future SAI implementation relative to a climate change scenario benefits global maize productivity ranging between 0% and 11% depending on the crop model. These production increases are attributed to reduced surface temperatures and higher fractions of diffuse radiation. The range across model outcomes highlights the need for more systematic multi-model ensemble assessments using multiple climate model forcings under different SAI scenarios. *Key Points* This is the first multi-crop model assessment of stratospheric aerosol climate intervention (SAI) impacts on global agriculture Two crop models show that SAI benefits global maize relative to climate change, and the third crop model shows a very mild response to SAI Changes to diffuse radiation in this scenario have a small impact on global maize, while temperature changes dominate the overall response *Plain Language Summary* Human activities are continuing to put planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Increasing the amount of sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere has been proposed as a way to reflect a small portion of incoming solar radiation to temporarily cool the Earth's surface temperature and, therefore, mitigate the impacts of climate change. However, these reflective particles cause complex atmospheric feedback mechanisms that may lead to societal and Earth system impacts that are difficult to predict, including impacts on global food production. As a pilot study, we explore impacts on global maize productivity using state-of-the-art mechanistic climate and crop models and highlight that more research on this topic is still needed before informed decisions can be made. *Source: AGU* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAHJsh99JM8Pfzs_t%2BbUDQ%3D_J35Qc2Q-x6igTG3eK3eprK1a9Zw%40mail.gmail.com.
