Sensitivity of Arctic sea ice recovery to stratospheric aerosol injection latitude
Abstract
Under multiple anthropogenic global warming scenarios considered by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), Arctic sea ice is projected to disappear seasonally as early as 2035. Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) is a climate intervention strategy that has been proposed to mitigate some of the impacts of global warming. In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of SAI in preserving Arctic sea ice, focusing on its sensitivity to the injection latitude of the aerosols. Using the 2nd version of the Community Earth System Model (CESM2) coupled with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM6), we analyze experiments with aerosol injection latitudes ranging from 45°S to 45°N. The results reveal that as the injection latitude shifts closer to the North Pole, Arctic sea ice rapidly recovers in both its extent and volume. This recovery is driven by coordinated shifts in clear-sky and cloud-related radiation, along with changes in surface reflectivity, that collectively reshape the surface energy balance in favor of ice growth. Importantly, we also find that, under fixed SAI injection rates, Arctic sea ice recovery varies substantially with injection latitude and does not scale directly with global mean surface temperature.
Data availability
The CESM2-WACCM6 simulation datasets generated and analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. Observational SIC data from the NOAA/NSIDC Climate Data Record (Version 3) are publicly available at https://nsidc.org/data/g02202/versions/3, while SIT data from the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System can be accessed at https://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/data/model_grid. Codes for this study are available upon reasonable requests from H.K. (first author).
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their careful review of the original manuscript and for their valuable suggestions, which have greatly helped us improve it. We also thank Jungeun Lee for her assistance in preparing the schematic illustration in Fig. 4. Hyerim Kim was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (RS-2023-00243113). Hyemi Kim was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (RS-2023-00278113), the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program (RS-2025-02313090), and the Ewha Womans University Research Grant of 2023.
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H.K. (first author) and H.K. (corresponding author) designed the original ideas of the study. H.K. (first author) performed the data analysis and wrote the original manuscript. D.V. and E.M.B. contributed to the interpretation of the results and improvement of the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the manuscript.
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Kim, H., Kim, H., Visioni, D. et al. Sensitivity of Arctic sea ice recovery to stratospheric aerosol injection latitude. npj Clim Atmos Sci (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01298-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01298-0