Climate Sensitivity Controls Uncertainty in Future Terrestrial Carbon Sink
(2018) In Geophysical Research Letters 45(9). p.4329-4336- Abstract
For the 21st century, carbon cycle models typically project an increase of terrestrial carbon with increasing atmospheric CO2 and a decrease with the accompanying climate change. However, these estimates are poorly constrained, primarily because they typically rely on a limited number of emission and climate scenarios. Here we explore a wide range of combinations of CO2 rise and climate change and assess their likelihood with the climate change responses obtained from climate models. Our results demonstrate that the terrestrial carbon uptake depends critically on the climate sensitivity of individual climate models, representing a large uncertainty of model estimates. In our simulations, the terrestrial biosphere... (More)
For the 21st century, carbon cycle models typically project an increase of terrestrial carbon with increasing atmospheric CO2 and a decrease with the accompanying climate change. However, these estimates are poorly constrained, primarily because they typically rely on a limited number of emission and climate scenarios. Here we explore a wide range of combinations of CO2 rise and climate change and assess their likelihood with the climate change responses obtained from climate models. Our results demonstrate that the terrestrial carbon uptake depends critically on the climate sensitivity of individual climate models, representing a large uncertainty of model estimates. In our simulations, the terrestrial biosphere is unlikely to become a strong source of carbon with any likely combination of CO2 and climate change in the absence of land use change, but the fraction of the emissions taken up by the terrestrial biosphere will decrease drastically with higher emissions.
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- author
- Schurgers, Guy LU ; Ahlström, Anders LU ; Arneth, Almut LU ; Pugh, Thomas A.M. LU and Smith, Benjamin LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2018-05-16
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Carbon cycle, Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Ecosystem modeling, Land carbon sink
- in
- Geophysical Research Letters
- volume
- 45
- issue
- 9
- pages
- 4329 - 4336
- publisher
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85046629072
- ISSN
- 0094-8276
- DOI
- 10.1029/2018GL077528
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 7ed4ac39-7e92-4769-9a35-4225a315b51f
- date added to LUP
- 2018-05-25 15:00:39
- date last changed
- 2022-12-30 11:56:54
@article{7ed4ac39-7e92-4769-9a35-4225a315b51f, abstract = {{<p>For the 21st century, carbon cycle models typically project an increase of terrestrial carbon with increasing atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> and a decrease with the accompanying climate change. However, these estimates are poorly constrained, primarily because they typically rely on a limited number of emission and climate scenarios. Here we explore a wide range of combinations of CO<sub>2</sub> rise and climate change and assess their likelihood with the climate change responses obtained from climate models. Our results demonstrate that the terrestrial carbon uptake depends critically on the climate sensitivity of individual climate models, representing a large uncertainty of model estimates. In our simulations, the terrestrial biosphere is unlikely to become a strong source of carbon with any likely combination of CO<sub>2</sub> and climate change in the absence of land use change, but the fraction of the emissions taken up by the terrestrial biosphere will decrease drastically with higher emissions.</p>}}, author = {{Schurgers, Guy and Ahlström, Anders and Arneth, Almut and Pugh, Thomas A.M. and Smith, Benjamin}}, issn = {{0094-8276}}, keywords = {{Carbon cycle; Climate change; Climate sensitivity; Ecosystem modeling; Land carbon sink}}, language = {{eng}}, month = {{05}}, number = {{9}}, pages = {{4329--4336}}, publisher = {{American Geophysical Union (AGU)}}, series = {{Geophysical Research Letters}}, title = {{Climate Sensitivity Controls Uncertainty in Future Terrestrial Carbon Sink}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2018GL077528}}, doi = {{10.1029/2018GL077528}}, volume = {{45}}, year = {{2018}}, }