Meteorological Response to CO2 Sequestration and Storage in Antarctica

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a climate intervention method that is being given more consideration to address Earth's increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentration and the resulting climate change problem. CDR in Antarctica through CO₂ deposition and storage has been proposed by Agee et al. (2013). Agee and Orton (2016) discusses a small prototype that successfully demonstrated the simplicity of this CO₂ deposition process. Though engineering developments to maximize sequestration efficiency is important, understanding the atmospheric response to sequestration on Earth's coldest continent takes precedence.

The Community Earth System Model 2.1 has been employed to run fully-coupled simulations (all model components active) of CO₂ sequestration in Antarctica. Atmospheric response to various amounts of sequestration from latitudes 60ºS-90ºS during the 2000-2014 time period is examined with focus on the Southern Hemisphere. All simulations contain observed anthropogenic emissions with Antarctica sequestration to compare to the control without sequestration. The sequestration simulations vary in CO₂ removal amounts; a) sequestration removes 1BtC per Agee et al. (2013) proposal, b) sequestration removes the amount of CO₂ emitted per a year, and c) sequestration until the global average concentration is equivalent to pre-industrial concentration.

Results show cooling over Antarctica, Southern Hemisphere ocean regions, North America, Europe, and the Arctic. The CO₂ concentration distribution changes as the CO₂ moves from the heavy emitting Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere, potentially indicating changes in weather phenomena due to sequestration in Antarctica. Short term weather response is important to examine for significant CO₂ sequestration at an isolated location. Understanding short term weather response could help in future work of sequestration with the various RCP scenarios that consider long term climate changes.