Identification

Title

Assessing regional climate trends in West Africa under geoengineering: A multimodel comparison of UKESM1 and CESM2

Abstract

This study investigates West Africa's climate vulnerability under stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), using UKESM1 and CESM2 models. We analyzed temperature and precipitation responses for 2050–2069 relative to 2015–2034 under SSP2‐4.5 and ARISE‐SAI‐1.5 scenarios. Our approach involved evaluating temperature and precipitation anomalies, applying signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) analysis—defined as the ratio of the forced climate response to internal variability—to assess signal robustness, and using cumulative distribution (CDF) and probability density (PDF) functions to explore shifts in precipitation extremes. Results indicate that under SSP2‐4.5, both models project significant warming. UKESM1 simulates increases near 1.8°C, while CESM2 projects between 1.0°C and 1.2°C. Under ARISE‐SAI‐1.5, UKESM1 shows pronounced cooling, with temperatures dropping up to 0.3°C below the reference period at some latitudes. CESM2 shows a more uniform cooling, with temperatures between 0°C and 0.3°C above the reference. SNR analysis reveals robust, statistically significant temperature changes across the region, clearly emerging above natural variability by midcentury. Precipitation changes, however, show lower SNR values and greater spatial uncertainty, suggesting weaker and less predictable hydrological responses. CDF and PDF analyses highlight complex shifts in precipitation extremes, suggesting that while SAI could counteract warming trends, it may introduce additional variability and uncertainty in rainfall projections. These results emphasize the importance of multimodel comparisons in assessing geoengineering impacts on regional climates, as differing sensitivities to radiative forcing and feedback can produce divergent outcomes.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7jd5273

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-07-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact