Carbon-cycle feedbacks operating in the climate system

Williams, Richard G.; Katavouta, Anna ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1587-4996; Goodwin, Philip. 2019 Carbon-cycle feedbacks operating in the climate system. Current Climate Change Reports, 5 (4). 282-295. 10.1007/s40641-019-00144-9

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40641-019-00144-9

Abstract/Summary

Climate change involves a direct response of the climate system to forcing which is amplified or damped by feedbacks operating in the climate system. Carbon-cycle feedbacks alter the land and ocean carbon inventories and so act to reduce or enhance the increase in atmospheric CO2 from carbon emissions. The prevailing framework for carbon-cycle feedbacks connect changes in land and ocean carbon inventories with a linear sum of dependencies on atmospheric CO2 and surface temperature. Carbon-cycle responses and feedbacks provide competing contributions: the dominant effect is that increasing atmospheric CO2 acts to enhance the land and ocean carbon stores, so providing a negative response and feedback to the original increase in atmospheric CO2, while rising surface temperature acts to reduce the land and ocean carbon stores, so providing a weaker positive feedback for atmospheric CO2. The carbon response and feedback of the land and ocean system may be expressed in terms of a combined carbon response and feedback parameter, λcarbon in units of W m− 2K− 1, and is linearly related to the physical climate feedback parameter, λclimate, revealing how carbon and climate responses and feedbacks are inter-connected. The magnitude and uncertainties in the carbon-cycle response and feedback parameter are comparable with the magnitude and uncertainties in the climate feedback parameter from clouds. Further mechanistic insight needs to be gained into how the carbon-cycle feedbacks are controlled for the land and ocean, particularly to separate often competing effects from changes in atmospheric CO2 and climate forcing.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1007/s40641-019-00144-9
ISSN:	2198-6061
Date made live:	02 Oct 2020 12:47 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/528574

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1007/s40641-019-00144-9

ISSN:

2198-6061

Date made live:

02 Oct 2020 12:47 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/528574