Simulations for impacts of large-scale Saharan solar farms on the global terrestrial carbon cycle

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of a large scale Saharan solar farm on the global carbon cycle. Here a fully coupled Earth System model (ESM) EC-Earth was used to investigate the impact of a Saharan solar farm on the terrestrial carbon cycle, simulated with prescribed reduced surface albedo approximating the albedo effect of Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels over the Sahara desert. These experiments considered solar panel coverage at 5, 20 or 50% of a region of the Sahara Desert.  The dataset contains selected output data from the simulations. Simulations were run for 200 years. The last 60 years were used for analysis after the model reached an equilibrium. 

The dataset contains Earth system model results from EC-Earth3 presented in the study by Power et al. (2023).