Investigating the ability of satellite occultation instruments to monitor possible  geoengineering experiments

Lange, Anna; Niemeier, Ulrike; Rozanov, Alexei; von Savigny, Christian

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-11673-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-11673-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-11673-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 19

Research article

|

30 Sep 2025

Research article |

| 30 Sep 2025

Investigating the ability of satellite occultation instruments to monitor possible geoengineering experiments

Anna Lange, Ulrike Niemeier, Alexei Rozanov, and Christian von Savigny

Data sets

Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) II Version 7.0 Aerosol, O3, NO2 and H2O Profiles in binary format NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC https://doi.org/10.5067/ERBS/SAGEII/SOLAR_BINARY_L2-V7.0

Short summary

Our paper investigates whether it is possible to observe continuous injections of 1 and 2 Tg S y^-1 (sulfur per year) into the stratosphere with the currently active satellite occultation instruments. The calculations show that, considering the natural variability and the assumptions made here, the stratospheric aerosols formed from continuous emissions of 1 and 2 Tg S y^-1 in the quasi-steady-state phase can be detected, which is not the case in the first month of the 2-year initial phase.