Comment on “An approach to sulfate geoengineering with surface emissions of carbonyl sulfide” by Quaglia et al. (2022)

Marc von Hobe, Christoph Brühl, Sinikka T. Lennartz, Mary E. Whelan, and Aleya Kaushik

Data sets

Simple Biosphere model version 4.2 (SiB4) simulations for the present day atmosphere with 500 ppt OCS and the two OCS geoengineering scenarios with 4.8 ppb and 35.5 ppb OCS A. Kaushik and M. E. Whelan https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7826296

Regional distribution of annual sea-to-air OCS fluxes for the present day atmosphere with 500 ppt OCS and the two OCS geoengineering scenarios with 4.8 ppb and 35.5 ppb S. T. Lennartz https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7826238

Top-of-the-atmosphere radiative forcing by aerosol due to continuous OCS injection near the tropical tropopause simulated by EMAC C. Brühl https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7826422

Model code and software

Sinikka-L/OCS_CS2_boxmodel: Original release (v1.0) Sinikka-L. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7977115

Simple Biosphere Model Version 4.2 SiB4 project members https://gitlab.com/kdhaynes/sib4v2_corral

Short summary

Carbonyl sulfide plays a role in the climate system as a greenhouse gas and as the major non-volcanic precursor of particles reflecting sunlight. Here, we comment on a proposal to increase the number of particles by emitting extra carbonyl sulfide at the surface. We show that the balance between aerosol cooling and greenhouse gas warming may not be as favorable as suggested and also that much of the carbonyl sulfide emissions will actually be taken up by the biosphere and the oceans.