Models and scenarios for solar radiation modification need to include human perceptions of risk

Abstract Solar radiation modification (SRM) is a climate intervention method that would reflect a portion of incoming solar radiation to cool the Earth and could be used to ameliorate the impacts of climate change, but that provokes strong reactions from experts and the public alike. Research has explored both the biophysical and human behavioral aspects of SRM but has not integrated these processes in a single framework. Our expectations for SRM development and deployment will be inaccurate until we integrate the feedbacks between human behavioral and cognitive processes and the biophysical and climate system. We propose a framework for describing these feedbacks and how they may mediate transitions in the development and operationalization of SRM as a climate intervention. We consider components such as public trust in SRM, moral hazard concerns, climate risk perceptions, and societal disruptions, and illustrate how the driving processes could change across the pre-development, post-development, and post-deployment phases of SRM operationalization to affect outcomes around SRM deployment and climate change. Our framework illustrates the importance of feedbacks between climate change, risk perceptions, and the human response and the necessity to integrate such feedbacks in the development of future scenarios for SRM.