Articles | Volume 21, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2759-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2759-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Soil carbon-concentration and carbon-climate feedbacks in CMIP6 Earth system models
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK
Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK
Pierre Friedlingstein
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK
Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique/Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure/Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, 75231, France
Sarah E. Chadburn
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK
Eleanor J. Burke
Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK
Peter M. Cox
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK
Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK
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Joseph Clarke, Chris Huntingford, Paul David Longden Ritchie, Rebecca Varney, Mark Williamson, and Peter Cox
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3703, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3703, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Earth System Dynamics (ESD).
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An increase in CO2 in the atmosphere warms the climate through the greenhouse effect, but also leads to uptake of CO2 by the land and ocean. However, the warming is also expected to suppress carbon uptake. If this suppression were strong enough, it could overwhelm the uptake of carbon, leading to a runaway feedback loop causing severe global warming. We find it is possible that this runaway could be relevant in complex climate models and even at the end of the last ice age.
Camilla Mathison, Eleanor J. Burke, Gregory Munday, Chris D. Jones, Chris J. Smith, Norman J. Steinert, Andy J. Wiltshire, Chris Huntingford, Eszter Kovacs, Laila K. Gohar, Rebecca M. Varney, and Douglas McNeall
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1785–1808, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1785-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1785-2025, 2025
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We present PRIME (Probabilistic Regional Impacts from Model patterns and Emissions), which is designed to take new emissions scenarios and rapidly provide regional impact information. PRIME allows large ensembles to be run on multi-centennial timescales, including the analysis of many important variables for impact assessments. Our evaluation shows that PRIME reproduces the climate response for known scenarios, providing confidence in using PRIME for novel scenarios.
Rebecca M. Varney, Sarah E. Chadburn, Eleanor J. Burke, Simon Jones, Andy J. Wiltshire, and Peter M. Cox
Biogeosciences, 20, 3767–3790, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-3767-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-3767-2023, 2023
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This study evaluates soil carbon projections during the 21st century in CMIP6 Earth system models. In general, we find a reduced spread of changes in global soil carbon in CMIP6 compared to the previous CMIP5 generation. The reduced CMIP6 spread arises from an emergent relationship between soil carbon changes due to change in plant productivity and soil carbon changes due to changes in turnover time. We show that this relationship is consistent with false priming under transient climate change.
Rebecca M. Varney, Sarah E. Chadburn, Eleanor J. Burke, and Peter M. Cox
Biogeosciences, 19, 4671–4704, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4671-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4671-2022, 2022
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Soil carbon is the Earth’s largest terrestrial carbon store, and the response to climate change represents one of the key uncertainties in obtaining accurate global carbon budgets required to successfully militate against climate change. The ability of climate models to simulate present-day soil carbon is therefore vital. This study assesses soil carbon simulation in the latest ensemble of models which allows key areas for future model development to be identified.
Joseph Clarke, Chris Huntingford, Paul David Longden Ritchie, Rebecca Varney, Mark Williamson, and Peter Cox
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3703, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3703, 2025
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An increase in CO2 in the atmosphere warms the climate through the greenhouse effect, but also leads to uptake of CO2 by the land and ocean. However, the warming is also expected to suppress carbon uptake. If this suppression were strong enough, it could overwhelm the uptake of carbon, leading to a runaway feedback loop causing severe global warming. We find it is possible that this runaway could be relevant in complex climate models and even at the end of the last ice age.
Douglas I. Kelley, Chantelle Burton, Francesca Di Giuseppe, Matthew W. Jones, Maria L. F. Barbosa, Esther Brambleby, Joe R. McNorton, Zhongwei Liu, Anna S. I. Bradley, Katie Blackford, Eleanor Burke, Andrew Ciavarella, Enza Di Tomaso, Jonathan Eden, Igor José M. Ferreira, Lukas Fiedler, Andrew J. Hartley, Theodore R. Keeping, Seppe Lampe, Anna Lombardi, Guilherme Mataveli, Yuquan Qu, Patrícia S. Silva, Fiona R. Spuler, Carmen B. Steinmann, Miguel Ángel Torres-Vázquez, Renata Veiga, Dave van Wees, Jakob B. Wessel, Emily Wright, Bibiana Bilbao, Mathieu Bourbonnais, Gao Cong, Carlos M. Di Bella, Kebonye Dintwe, Victoria M. Donovan, Sarah Harris, Elena A. Kukavskaya, Brigitte N’Dri, Cristina Santín, Galia Selaya, Johan Sjöström, John Abatzoglou, Niels Andela, Rachel Carmenta, Emilio Chuvieco, Louis Giglio, Douglas S. Hamilton, Stijn Hantson, Sarah Meier, Mark Parrington, Mojtaba Sadegh, Jesus San-Miguel-Ayanz, Fernando Sedano, Marco Turco, Guido R. van der Werf, Sander Veraverbeke, Liana O. Anderson, Hamish Clarke, Paulo M. Fernandes, and Crystal A. Kolden
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-483, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-483, 2025
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The second State of Wildfires report examines extreme wildfire events from 2024 to early 2025. It analyses key regional events in Southern California, Northeast Amazonia, Pantanal-Chiquitano, and the Congo Basin, assessing their drivers, predictability, and attributing them to climate change and land use. Seasonal outlooks and decadal projections are provided. Climate change greatly increased the likelihood of these fires, and without strong mitigation, such events will become more frequent.
Ida Bagus Mandhara Brasika, Pierre Friedlingstein, Stephen Sitch, Michael O'Sullivan, Maria Carolina Duran-Rojas, Thais Michele Rosan, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Louise P. Chini, and George C. Hurtt
Biogeosciences, 22, 3547–3561, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-3547-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-3547-2025, 2025
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Indonesia is the world's third-highest carbon emitter from land use change. However, there are uncertainties in the carbon emissions of Indonesia. Our best estimate of carbon emissions from land use change in Indonesia is 0.12 ± 0.02 PgC/yr with a steady trend. Despite many uncertainties created by drivers, models, and products, we also found robust agreements between these models and products. All agree that Indonesian carbon emissions from LULCC (land use and land cover change) have had no decreasing trend for the last 2 decades.
Piers M. Forster, Chris Smith, Tristram Walsh, William F. Lamb, Robin Lamboll, Christophe Cassou, Mathias Hauser, Zeke Hausfather, June-Yi Lee, Matthew D. Palmer, Karina von Schuckmann, Aimée B. A. Slangen, Sophie Szopa, Blair Trewin, Jeongeun Yun, Nathan P. Gillett, Stuart Jenkins, H. Damon Matthews, Krishnan Raghavan, Aurélien Ribes, Joeri Rogelj, Debbie Rosen, Xuebin Zhang, Myles Allen, Lara Aleluia Reis, Robbie M. Andrew, Richard A. Betts, Alex Borger, Jiddu A. Broersma, Samantha N. Burgess, Lijing Cheng, Pierre Friedlingstein, Catia M. Domingues, Marco Gambarini, Thomas Gasser, Johannes Gütschow, Masayoshi Ishii, Christopher Kadow, John Kennedy, Rachel E. Killick, Paul B. Krummel, Aurélien Liné, Didier P. Monselesan, Colin Morice, Jens Mühle, Vaishali Naik, Glen P. Peters, Anna Pirani, Julia Pongratz, Jan C. Minx, Matthew Rigby, Robert Rohde, Abhishek Savita, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Peter Thorne, Christopher Wells, Luke M. Western, Guido R. van der Werf, Susan E. Wijffels, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, and Panmao Zhai
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 2641–2680, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2641-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2641-2025, 2025
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In a rapidly changing climate, evidence-based decision-making benefits from up-to-date and timely information. Here we compile monitoring datasets to track real-world changes over time. To make our work relevant to policymakers, we follow methods from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Human activities are increasing the Earth's energy imbalance and driving faster sea-level rise compared to the IPCC assessment.
Ricarda Winkelmann, Donovan P. Dennis, Jonathan F. Donges, Sina Loriani, Ann Kristin Klose, Jesse F. Abrams, Jorge Alvarez-Solas, Torsten Albrecht, David Armstrong McKay, Sebastian Bathiany, Javier Blasco Navarro, Victor Brovkin, Eleanor Burke, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Reik V. Donner, Markus Drüke, Goran Georgievski, Heiko Goelzer, Anna B. Harper, Gabriele Hegerl, Marina Hirota, Aixue Hu, Laura C. Jackson, Colin Jones, Hyungjun Kim, Torben Koenigk, Peter Lawrence, Timothy M. Lenton, Hannah Liddy, José Licón-Saláiz, Maxence Menthon, Marisa Montoya, Jan Nitzbon, Sophie Nowicki, Bette Otto-Bliesner, Francesco Pausata, Stefan Rahmstorf, Karoline Ramin, Alexander Robinson, Johan Rockström, Anastasia Romanou, Boris Sakschewski, Christina Schädel, Steven Sherwood, Robin S. Smith, Norman J. Steinert, Didier Swingedouw, Matteo Willeit, Wilbert Weijer, Richard Wood, Klaus Wyser, and Shuting Yang
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1899, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1899, 2025
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EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2103, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2103, 2025
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This paper describes the experiments and data sets necessary to run historic and future impact projections, and the underlying assumptions of future climate change as defined by the 3rd round of the ISIMIP Project (Inter-sectoral Impactmodel Intercomparison Project, isimip.org). ISIMIP provides a framework for cross-sectorally consistent climate impact simulations to contribute to a comprehensive and consistent picture of the world under different climate-change scenarios.
William Lamb, Robbie Andrew, Matthew Jones, Zebedee Nicholls, Glen Peters, Chris Smith, Marielle Saunois, Giacomo Grassi, Julia Pongratz, Steven Smith, Francesco Tubiello, Monica Crippa, Matthew Gidden, Pierre Friedlingstein, Jan Minx, and Piers Forster
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-188, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-188, 2025
Preprint under review for ESSD
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This study explores why global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions estimates vary. Key reasons include different coverage of gases and sectors, varying definitions of anthropogenic land use change emissions, and the Paris Agreement not covering all emission sources. The study highlights three main ways emissions data is reported, each with different objectives and resulting in varying global emission totals. It emphasizes the need for transparency in choosing datasets and setting assessment scopes.
Tomohiro Hajima, Michio Kawamiya, Akihiko Ito, Kaoru Tachiiri, Chris D. Jones, Vivek Arora, Victor Brovkin, Roland Séférian, Spencer Liddicoat, Pierre Friedlingstein, and Elena Shevliakova
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This study analyzes atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global carbon budgets simulated by multiple Earth system models, using several types of simulations (CO2 concentration- and emission-driven experiments). We successfully identified problems with regard to the global carbon budget in each model. We also found urgent issues with regard to land use change CO2 emissions that should be solved in the latest generation of models.
Camilla Mathison, Eleanor J. Burke, Gregory Munday, Chris D. Jones, Chris J. Smith, Norman J. Steinert, Andy J. Wiltshire, Chris Huntingford, Eszter Kovacs, Laila K. Gohar, Rebecca M. Varney, and Douglas McNeall
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1785–1808, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1785-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-1785-2025, 2025
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We present PRIME (Probabilistic Regional Impacts from Model patterns and Emissions), which is designed to take new emissions scenarios and rapidly provide regional impact information. PRIME allows large ensembles to be run on multi-centennial timescales, including the analysis of many important variables for impact assessments. Our evaluation shows that PRIME reproduces the climate response for known scenarios, providing confidence in using PRIME for novel scenarios.
Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Matthew W. Jones, Robbie M. Andrew, Judith Hauck, Peter Landschützer, Corinne Le Quéré, Hongmei Li, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Are Olsen, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Almut Arneth, Vivek Arora, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Carla F. Berghoff, Henry C. Bittig, Laurent Bopp, Patricia Cadule, Katie Campbell, Matthew A. Chamberlain, Naveen Chandra, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Thomas Colligan, Jeanne Decayeux, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Carolina Duran Rojas, Kazutaka Enyo, Wiley Evans, Amanda R. Fay, Richard A. Feely, Daniel J. Ford, Adrianna Foster, Thomas Gasser, Marion Gehlen, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Matthew Hefner, Jens Heinke, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Andrew R. Jacobson, Atul K. Jain, Tereza Jarníková, Annika Jersild, Fei Jiang, Zhe Jin, Etsushi Kato, Ralph F. Keeling, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Xin Lan, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefèvre, Zhu Liu, Junjie Liu, Lei Ma, Shamil Maksyutov, Gregg Marland, Nicolas Mayot, Patrick C. McGuire, Nicolas Metzl, Natalie M. Monacci, Eric J. Morgan, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Craig Neill, Yosuke Niwa, Tobias Nützel, Lea Olivier, Tsuneo Ono, Paul I. Palmer, Denis Pierrot, Zhangcai Qin, Laure Resplandy, Alizée Roobaert, Thais M. Rosan, Christian Rödenbeck, Jörg Schwinger, T. Luke Smallman, Stephen M. Smith, Reinel Sospedra-Alfonso, Tobias Steinhoff, Qing Sun, Adrienne J. Sutton, Roland Séférian, Shintaro Takao, Hiroaki Tatebe, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Olivier Torres, Etienne Tourigny, Hiroyuki Tsujino, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Rik Wanninkhof, Xuhui Wang, Dongxu Yang, Xiaojuan Yang, Zhen Yu, Wenping Yuan, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Ning Zeng, and Jiye Zeng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 965–1039, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-965-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-965-2025, 2025
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The Global Carbon Budget 2024 describes the methodology, main results, and datasets used to quantify the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their partitioning among the atmosphere, land ecosystems, and the ocean over the historical period (1750–2024). These living datasets are updated every year to provide the highest transparency and traceability in the reporting of CO2, the key driver of climate change.
Anastasios Rovithakis, Eleanor Burke, Chantelle Burton, Matthew Kasoar, Manolis G. Grillakis, Konstantinos D. Seiradakis, and Apostolos Voulgarakis
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-274, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-274, 2025
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JULES-INFERNO captures observed burned area across Greece fairly well for the present-day. Drastic future changes in burnt area in Eastern continental and southern Greece, especially under severe climate change scenarios. Static vegetation leads to larger burnt area compared to dynamic vegetation due to the lower concentration of flammable needleleaf trees.
Detlef van Vuuren, Brian O'Neill, Claudia Tebaldi, Louise Chini, Pierre Friedlingstein, Tomoko Hasegawa, Keywan Riahi, Benjamin Sanderson, Bala Govindasamy, Nico Bauer, Veronika Eyring, Cheikh Fall, Katja Frieler, Matthew Gidden, Laila Gohar, Andrew Jones, Andrew King, Reto Knutti, Elmar Kriegler, Peter Lawrence, Chris Lennard, Jason Lowe, Camila Mathison, Shahbaz Mehmood, Luciana Prado, Qiang Zhang, Steven Rose, Alexander Ruane, Carl-Friederich Schleussner, Roland Seferian, Jana Sillmann, Chris Smith, Anna Sörensson, Swapna Panickal, Kaoru Tachiiri, Naomi Vaughan, Saritha Vishwanathan, Tokuta Yokohata, and Tilo Ziehn
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We propose a set of six plausible 21st century emission scenarios, and their multi-century extensions, that will be used by the international community of climate modeling centers to produce the next generation of climate projections. These projections will support climate, impact and mitigation researchers, provide information to practitioners to address future risks from climate change, and contribute to policymakers’ considerations of the trade-offs among various levels of mitigation.
Tuula Aalto, Aki Tsuruta, Jarmo Mäkelä, Jurek Müller, Maria Tenkanen, Eleanor Burke, Sarah Chadburn, Yao Gao, Vilma Mannisenaho, Thomas Kleinen, Hanna Lee, Antti Leppänen, Tiina Markkanen, Stefano Materia, Paul A. Miller, Daniele Peano, Olli Peltola, Benjamin Poulter, Maarit Raivonen, Marielle Saunois, David Wårlind, and Sönke Zaehle
Biogeosciences, 22, 323–340, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-323-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-323-2025, 2025
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Wetland methane responses to temperature and precipitation were studied in a boreal wetland-rich region in northern Europe using ecosystem models, atmospheric inversions, and upscaled flux observations. The ecosystem models differed in their responses to temperature and precipitation and in their seasonality. However, multi-model means, inversions, and upscaled fluxes had similar seasonality, and they suggested co-limitation by temperature and precipitation.
Yona Silvy, Thomas L. Frölicher, Jens Terhaar, Fortunat Joos, Friedrich A. Burger, Fabrice Lacroix, Myles Allen, Raffaele Bernardello, Laurent Bopp, Victor Brovkin, Jonathan R. Buzan, Patricia Cadule, Martin Dix, John Dunne, Pierre Friedlingstein, Goran Georgievski, Tomohiro Hajima, Stuart Jenkins, Michio Kawamiya, Nancy Y. Kiang, Vladimir Lapin, Donghyun Lee, Paul Lerner, Nadine Mengis, Estela A. Monteiro, David Paynter, Glen P. Peters, Anastasia Romanou, Jörg Schwinger, Sarah Sparrow, Eric Stofferahn, Jerry Tjiputra, Etienne Tourigny, and Tilo Ziehn
Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 1591–1628, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1591-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1591-2024, 2024
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The adaptive emission reduction approach is applied with Earth system models to generate temperature stabilization simulations. These simulations provide compatible emission pathways and budgets for a given warming level, uncovering uncertainty ranges previously missing in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project scenarios. These target-based emission-driven simulations offer a more coherent assessment across models for studying both the carbon cycle and its impacts under climate stabilization.
Bettina K. Gier, Manuel Schlund, Pierre Friedlingstein, Chris D. Jones, Colin Jones, Sönke Zaehle, and Veronika Eyring
Biogeosciences, 21, 5321–5360, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5321-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5321-2024, 2024
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This study investigates present-day carbon cycle variables in CMIP5 and CMIP6 simulations. Overall, CMIP6 models perform better but also show many remaining biases. A significant improvement in the simulation of photosynthesis in models with a nitrogen cycle is found, with only small differences between emission- and concentration-based simulations. Thus, we recommend using emission-driven simulations in CMIP7 by default and including the nitrogen cycle in all future carbon cycle models.
Benjamin M. Sanderson, Ben B. B. Booth, John Dunne, Veronika Eyring, Rosie A. Fisher, Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew J. Gidden, Tomohiro Hajima, Chris D. Jones, Colin G. Jones, Andrew King, Charles D. Koven, David M. Lawrence, Jason Lowe, Nadine Mengis, Glen P. Peters, Joeri Rogelj, Chris Smith, Abigail C. Snyder, Isla R. Simpson, Abigail L. S. Swann, Claudia Tebaldi, Tatiana Ilyina, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Roland Séférian, Bjørn H. Samset, Detlef van Vuuren, and Sönke Zaehle
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 8141–8172, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8141-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8141-2024, 2024
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We discuss how, in order to provide more relevant guidance for climate policy, coordinated climate experiments should adopt a greater focus on simulations where Earth system models are provided with carbon emissions from fossil fuels together with land use change instructions, rather than past approaches that have largely focused on experiments with prescribed atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. We discuss how these goals might be achieved in coordinated climate modeling experiments.
Colin G. Jones, Fanny Adloff, Ben B. B. Booth, Peter M. Cox, Veronika Eyring, Pierre Friedlingstein, Katja Frieler, Helene T. Hewitt, Hazel A. Jeffery, Sylvie Joussaume, Torben Koenigk, Bryan N. Lawrence, Eleanor O'Rourke, Malcolm J. Roberts, Benjamin M. Sanderson, Roland Séférian, Samuel Somot, Pier Luigi Vidale, Detlef van Vuuren, Mario Acosta, Mats Bentsen, Raffaele Bernardello, Richard Betts, Ed Blockley, Julien Boé, Tom Bracegirdle, Pascale Braconnot, Victor Brovkin, Carlo Buontempo, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Markus Donat, Italo Epicoco, Pete Falloon, Sandro Fiore, Thomas Frölicher, Neven S. Fučkar, Matthew J. Gidden, Helge F. Goessling, Rune Grand Graversen, Silvio Gualdi, José M. Gutiérrez, Tatiana Ilyina, Daniela Jacob, Chris D. Jones, Martin Juckes, Elizabeth Kendon, Erik Kjellström, Reto Knutti, Jason Lowe, Matthew Mizielinski, Paola Nassisi, Michael Obersteiner, Pierre Regnier, Romain Roehrig, David Salas y Mélia, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Michael Schulz, Enrico Scoccimarro, Laurent Terray, Hannes Thiemann, Richard A. Wood, Shuting Yang, and Sönke Zaehle
Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 1319–1351, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1319-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1319-2024, 2024
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We propose a number of priority areas for the international climate research community to address over the coming decade. Advances in these areas will both increase our understanding of past and future Earth system change, including the societal and environmental impacts of this change, and deliver significantly improved scientific support to international climate policy, such as future IPCC assessments and the UNFCCC Global Stocktake.
Paul David Longden Ritchie, Chris Huntingford, and Peter Cox
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3023, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3023, 2024
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Climate Tipping Points are not instantaneous upon crossing critical thresholds in global warming, as is often assumed. Instead, it is possible to temporarily overshoot a threshold without causing tipping, provided the duration of the overshoot is short. In this Idea, we demonstrate that restricting the time over 1.5 °C would considerably reduce tipping point risks.
Matthew W. Jones, Douglas I. Kelley, Chantelle A. Burton, Francesca Di Giuseppe, Maria Lucia F. Barbosa, Esther Brambleby, Andrew J. Hartley, Anna Lombardi, Guilherme Mataveli, Joe R. McNorton, Fiona R. Spuler, Jakob B. Wessel, John T. Abatzoglou, Liana O. Anderson, Niels Andela, Sally Archibald, Dolors Armenteras, Eleanor Burke, Rachel Carmenta, Emilio Chuvieco, Hamish Clarke, Stefan H. Doerr, Paulo M. Fernandes, Louis Giglio, Douglas S. Hamilton, Stijn Hantson, Sarah Harris, Piyush Jain, Crystal A. Kolden, Tiina Kurvits, Seppe Lampe, Sarah Meier, Stacey New, Mark Parrington, Morgane M. G. Perron, Yuquan Qu, Natasha S. Ribeiro, Bambang H. Saharjo, Jesus San-Miguel-Ayanz, Jacquelyn K. Shuman, Veerachai Tanpipat, Guido R. van der Werf, Sander Veraverbeke, and Gavriil Xanthopoulos
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 3601–3685, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-3601-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-3601-2024, 2024
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This inaugural State of Wildfires report catalogues extreme fires of the 2023–2024 fire season. For key events, we analyse their predictability and drivers and attribute them to climate change and land use. We provide a seasonal outlook and decadal projections. Key anomalies occurred in Canada, Greece, and western Amazonia, with other high-impact events catalogued worldwide. Climate change significantly increased the likelihood of extreme fires, and mitigation is required to lessen future risk.
Mark S. Williamson, Peter M. Cox, Chris Huntingford, and Femke J. M. M. Nijsse
Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 829–852, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-829-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-829-2024, 2024
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Emergent constraints on equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) have generally got statistically weaker in the latest set of state-of-the-art climate models (CMIP6) compared to past sets (CMIP5). We look at why this weakening happened for one particular study (Cox et al, 2018) and attribute it to an assumption made in the theory that when corrected for restores there is a stronger relationship between predictor and ECS.
Piers M. Forster, Chris Smith, Tristram Walsh, William F. Lamb, Robin Lamboll, Bradley Hall, Mathias Hauser, Aurélien Ribes, Debbie Rosen, Nathan P. Gillett, Matthew D. Palmer, Joeri Rogelj, Karina von Schuckmann, Blair Trewin, Myles Allen, Robbie Andrew, Richard A. Betts, Alex Borger, Tim Boyer, Jiddu A. Broersma, Carlo Buontempo, Samantha Burgess, Chiara Cagnazzo, Lijing Cheng, Pierre Friedlingstein, Andrew Gettelman, Johannes Gütschow, Masayoshi Ishii, Stuart Jenkins, Xin Lan, Colin Morice, Jens Mühle, Christopher Kadow, John Kennedy, Rachel E. Killick, Paul B. Krummel, Jan C. Minx, Gunnar Myhre, Vaishali Naik, Glen P. Peters, Anna Pirani, Julia Pongratz, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Sophie Szopa, Peter Thorne, Mahesh V. M. Kovilakam, Elisa Majamäki, Jukka-Pekka Jalkanen, Margreet van Marle, Rachel M. Hoesly, Robert Rohde, Dominik Schumacher, Guido van der Werf, Russell Vose, Kirsten Zickfeld, Xuebin Zhang, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, and Panmao Zhai
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 2625–2658, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2625-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2625-2024, 2024
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This paper tracks some key indicators of global warming through time, from 1850 through to the end of 2023. It is designed to give an authoritative estimate of global warming to date and its causes. We find that in 2023, global warming reached 1.3 °C and is increasing at over 0.2 °C per decade. This is caused by all-time-high greenhouse gas emissions.
Katie R. Blackford, Matthew Kasoar, Chantelle Burton, Eleanor Burke, Iain Colin Prentice, and Apostolos Voulgarakis
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3063–3079, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3063-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3063-2024, 2024
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Peatlands are globally important stores of carbon which are being increasingly threatened by wildfires with knock-on effects on the climate system. Here we introduce a novel peat fire parameterization in the northern high latitudes to the INFERNO global fire model. Representing peat fires increases annual burnt area across the high latitudes, alongside improvements in how we capture year-to-year variation in burning and emissions.
Katja Frieler, Jan Volkholz, Stefan Lange, Jacob Schewe, Matthias Mengel, María del Rocío Rivas López, Christian Otto, Christopher P. O. Reyer, Dirk Nikolaus Karger, Johanna T. Malle, Simon Treu, Christoph Menz, Julia L. Blanchard, Cheryl S. Harrison, Colleen M. Petrik, Tyler D. Eddy, Kelly Ortega-Cisneros, Camilla Novaglio, Yannick Rousseau, Reg A. Watson, Charles Stock, Xiao Liu, Ryan Heneghan, Derek Tittensor, Olivier Maury, Matthias Büchner, Thomas Vogt, Tingting Wang, Fubao Sun, Inga J. Sauer, Johannes Koch, Inne Vanderkelen, Jonas Jägermeyr, Christoph Müller, Sam Rabin, Jochen Klar, Iliusi D. Vega del Valle, Gitta Lasslop, Sarah Chadburn, Eleanor Burke, Angela Gallego-Sala, Noah Smith, Jinfeng Chang, Stijn Hantson, Chantelle Burton, Anne Gädeke, Fang Li, Simon N. Gosling, Hannes Müller Schmied, Fred Hattermann, Jida Wang, Fangfang Yao, Thomas Hickler, Rafael Marcé, Don Pierson, Wim Thiery, Daniel Mercado-Bettín, Robert Ladwig, Ana Isabel Ayala-Zamora, Matthew Forrest, and Michel Bechtold
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 1–51, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1-2024, 2024
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Our paper provides an overview of all observational climate-related and socioeconomic forcing data used as input for the impact model evaluation and impact attribution experiments within the third round of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project. The experiments are designed to test our understanding of observed changes in natural and human systems and to quantify to what degree these changes have already been induced by climate change.
Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Matthew W. Jones, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Peter Landschützer, Corinne Le Quéré, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Leticia Barbero, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Bertrand Decharme, Laurent Bopp, Ida Bagus Mandhara Brasika, Patricia Cadule, Matthew A. Chamberlain, Naveen Chandra, Thi-Tuyet-Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Xinyu Dou, Kazutaka Enyo, Wiley Evans, Stefanie Falk, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Daniel J. Ford, Thomas Gasser, Josefine Ghattas, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Matthew Hefner, Jens Heinke, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Andrew R. Jacobson, Atul Jain, Tereza Jarníková, Annika Jersild, Fei Jiang, Zhe Jin, Fortunat Joos, Etsushi Kato, Ralph F. Keeling, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne Körtzinger, Xin Lan, Nathalie Lefèvre, Hongmei Li, Junjie Liu, Zhiqiang Liu, Lei Ma, Greg Marland, Nicolas Mayot, Patrick C. McGuire, Galen A. McKinley, Gesa Meyer, Eric J. Morgan, David R. Munro, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Kevin M. O'Brien, Are Olsen, Abdirahman M. Omar, Tsuneo Ono, Melf Paulsen, Denis Pierrot, Katie Pocock, Benjamin Poulter, Carter M. Powis, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Thais M. Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Roland Séférian, T. Luke Smallman, Stephen M. Smith, Reinel Sospedra-Alfonso, Qing Sun, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Shintaro Takao, Pieter P. Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Hiroyuki Tsujino, Francesco Tubiello, Guido R. van der Werf, Erik van Ooijen, Rik Wanninkhof, Michio Watanabe, Cathy Wimart-Rousseau, Dongxu Yang, Xiaojuan Yang, Wenping Yuan, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng, and Bo Zheng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 5301–5369, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5301-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5301-2023, 2023
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The Global Carbon Budget 2023 describes the methodology, main results, and data sets used to quantify the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their partitioning among the atmosphere, land ecosystems, and the ocean over the historical period (1750–2023). These living datasets are updated every year to provide the highest transparency and traceability in the reporting of CO2, the key driver of climate change.
Zi Huang, Jiaoyue Wang, Longfei Bing, Yijiao Qiu, Rui Guo, Ying Yu, Mingjing Ma, Le Niu, Dan Tong, Robbie M. Andrew, Pierre Friedlingstein, Josep G. Canadell, Fengming Xi, and Zhu Liu
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 4947–4958, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-4947-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-4947-2023, 2023
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This is about global and regional cement process carbon emissions and CO2 uptake calculations from 1930 to 2019. The global cement production is rising to 4.4 Gt, causing processing carbon emission of 1.81 Gt (95% CI: 1.75–1.88 Gt CO2) in 2021. Plus, in 2021, cement’s carbon accumulated uptake (22.9 Gt, 95% CI: 19.6–22.6 Gt CO2) has offset 55.2% of cement process CO2 emissions (41.5 Gt, 95% CI: 38.7–47.1 Gt CO2) since 1930.
Matthew J. McGrath, Ana Maria Roxana Petrescu, Philippe Peylin, Robbie M. Andrew, Bradley Matthews, Frank Dentener, Juraj Balkovič, Vladislav Bastrikov, Meike Becker, Gregoire Broquet, Philippe Ciais, Audrey Fortems-Cheiney, Raphael Ganzenmüller, Giacomo Grassi, Ian Harris, Matthew Jones, Jürgen Knauer, Matthias Kuhnert, Guillaume Monteil, Saqr Munassar, Paul I. Palmer, Glen P. Peters, Chunjing Qiu, Mart-Jan Schelhaas, Oksana Tarasova, Matteo Vizzarri, Karina Winkler, Gianpaolo Balsamo, Antoine Berchet, Peter Briggs, Patrick Brockmann, Frédéric Chevallier, Giulia Conchedda, Monica Crippa, Stijn N. C. Dellaert, Hugo A. C. Denier van der Gon, Sara Filipek, Pierre Friedlingstein, Richard Fuchs, Michael Gauss, Christoph Gerbig, Diego Guizzardi, Dirk Günther, Richard A. Houghton, Greet Janssens-Maenhout, Ronny Lauerwald, Bas Lerink, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Géraud Moulas, Marilena Muntean, Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Aurélie Paquirissamy, Lucia Perugini, Wouter Peters, Roberto Pilli, Julia Pongratz, Pierre Regnier, Marko Scholze, Yusuf Serengil, Pete Smith, Efisio Solazzo, Rona L. Thompson, Francesco N. Tubiello, Timo Vesala, and Sophia Walther
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 4295–4370, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-4295-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-4295-2023, 2023
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Accurate estimation of fluxes of carbon dioxide from the land surface is essential for understanding future impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate system. A wide variety of methods currently exist to estimate these sources and sinks. We are continuing work to develop annual comparisons of these diverse methods in order to clarify what they all actually calculate and to resolve apparent disagreement, in addition to highlighting opportunities for increased understanding.
Rebecca M. Varney, Sarah E. Chadburn, Eleanor J. Burke, Simon Jones, Andy J. Wiltshire, and Peter M. Cox
Biogeosciences, 20, 3767–3790, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-3767-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-3767-2023, 2023
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This study evaluates soil carbon projections during the 21st century in CMIP6 Earth system models. In general, we find a reduced spread of changes in global soil carbon in CMIP6 compared to the previous CMIP5 generation. The reduced CMIP6 spread arises from an emergent relationship between soil carbon changes due to change in plant productivity and soil carbon changes due to changes in turnover time. We show that this relationship is consistent with false priming under transient climate change.
Camilla Mathison, Eleanor Burke, Andrew J. Hartley, Douglas I. Kelley, Chantelle Burton, Eddy Robertson, Nicola Gedney, Karina Williams, Andy Wiltshire, Richard J. Ellis, Alistair A. Sellar, and Chris D. Jones
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 4249–4264, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4249-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4249-2023, 2023
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This paper describes and evaluates a new modelling methodology to quantify the impacts of climate change on water, biomes and the carbon cycle. We have created a new configuration and set-up for the JULES-ES land surface model, driven by bias-corrected historical and future climate model output provided by the Inter-Sectoral Impacts Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP). This allows us to compare projections of the impacts of climate change across multiple impact models and multiple sectors.
Nina Raoult, Tim Jupp, Ben Booth, and Peter Cox
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 723–731, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-723-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-723-2023, 2023
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Climate models are used to predict the impact of climate change. However, poorly constrained parameters used in the physics of the models mean that we simulate a large spread of possible future outcomes. We can use real-world observations to reduce the uncertainty of parameter values, but we do not have observations to reduce the spread of possible future outcomes directly. We present a method for translating the reduction in parameter uncertainty into a reduction in possible model projections.
Paul D. L. Ritchie, Hassan Alkhayuon, Peter M. Cox, and Sebastian Wieczorek
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 669–683, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-669-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-669-2023, 2023
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Complex systems can undergo abrupt changes or tipping points when external forcing crosses a critical level and are of increasing concern because of their severe impacts. However, tipping points can also occur when the external forcing changes too quickly without crossing any critical levels, which is very relevant for Earth’s systems and contemporary climate. We give an intuitive explanation of such rate-induced tipping and provide illustrative examples from natural and human systems.
Piers M. Forster, Christopher J. Smith, Tristram Walsh, William F. Lamb, Robin Lamboll, Mathias Hauser, Aurélien Ribes, Debbie Rosen, Nathan Gillett, Matthew D. Palmer, Joeri Rogelj, Karina von Schuckmann, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Blair Trewin, Xuebin Zhang, Myles Allen, Robbie Andrew, Arlene Birt, Alex Borger, Tim Boyer, Jiddu A. Broersma, Lijing Cheng, Frank Dentener, Pierre Friedlingstein, José M. Gutiérrez, Johannes Gütschow, Bradley Hall, Masayoshi Ishii, Stuart Jenkins, Xin Lan, June-Yi Lee, Colin Morice, Christopher Kadow, John Kennedy, Rachel Killick, Jan C. Minx, Vaishali Naik, Glen P. Peters, Anna Pirani, Julia Pongratz, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Sophie Szopa, Peter Thorne, Robert Rohde, Maisa Rojas Corradi, Dominik Schumacher, Russell Vose, Kirsten Zickfeld, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, and Panmao Zhai
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 2295–2327, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2295-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2295-2023, 2023
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This is a critical decade for climate action, but there is no annual tracking of the level of human-induced warming. We build on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports that are authoritative but published infrequently to create a set of key global climate indicators that can be tracked through time. Our hope is that this becomes an important annual publication that policymakers, media, scientists and the public can refer to.
Chris Huntingford, Peter M. Cox, Mark S. Williamson, Joseph J. Clarke, and Paul D. L. Ritchie
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 433–442, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-433-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-433-2023, 2023
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Emergent constraints (ECs) reduce the spread of projections between climate models. ECs estimate changes to climate features impacting adaptation policy, and with this high profile, the method is under scrutiny. Asking
What is an EC?, we suggest they are often the discovery of parameters that characterise hidden large-scale equations that climate models solve implicitly. We present this conceptually via two examples. Our analysis implies possible new paths to link ECs and physical processes.
Giacomo Grassi, Clemens Schwingshackl, Thomas Gasser, Richard A. Houghton, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Alessandro Cescatti, Philippe Ciais, Sandro Federici, Pierre Friedlingstein, Werner A. Kurz, Maria J. Sanz Sanchez, Raúl Abad Viñas, Ramdane Alkama, Selma Bultan, Guido Ceccherini, Stefanie Falk, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Jürgen Knauer, Anu Korosuo, Joana Melo, Matthew J. McGrath, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Benjamin Poulter, Anna A. Romanovskaya, Simone Rossi, Hanqin Tian, Anthony P. Walker, Wenping Yuan, Xu Yue, and Julia Pongratz
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 1093–1114, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1093-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1093-2023, 2023
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Striking differences exist in estimates of land-use CO2 fluxes between the national greenhouse gas inventories and the IPCC assessment reports. These differences hamper an accurate assessment of the collective progress under the Paris Agreement. By implementing an approach that conceptually reconciles land-use CO2 flux from national inventories and the global models used by the IPCC, our study is an important step forward for increasing confidence in land-use CO2 flux estimates.
Morgan Sparey, Peter Cox, and Mark S. Williamson
Biogeosciences, 20, 451–488, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-451-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-451-2023, 2023
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Accurate climate models are vital for mitigating climate change; however, projections often disagree. Using Köppen–Geiger bioclimate classifications we show that CMIP6 climate models agree well on the fraction of global land surface that will change classification per degree of global warming. We find that 13 % of land will change climate per degree of warming from 1 to 3 K; thus, stabilising warming at 1.5 rather than 2 K would save over 7.5 million square kilometres from bioclimatic change.
Yao Gao, Eleanor J. Burke, Sarah E. Chadburn, Maarit Raivonen, Mika Aurela, Lawrence B. Flanagan, Krzysztof Fortuniak, Elyn Humphreys, Annalea Lohila, Tingting Li, Tiina Markkanen, Olli Nevalainen, Mats B. Nilsson, Włodzimierz Pawlak, Aki Tsuruta, Huiyi Yang, and Tuula Aalto
Biogeosciences Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2022-229, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2022-229, 2022
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We coupled a process-based peatland CH4 emission model HIMMELI with a state-of-art land surface model JULES. The performance of the coupled model was evaluated at six northern wetland sites. The coupled model is considered to be more appropriate in simulating wetland CH4 emission. In order to improve the simulated CH4 emission, the model requires better representation of the peat soil carbon and hydrologic processes in JULES and the methane production and transportation processes in HIMMELI.
Isobel M. Parry, Paul D. L. Ritchie, and Peter M. Cox
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1667–1675, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1667-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1667-2022, 2022
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Despite little evidence of regional Amazon rainforest dieback, many localised abrupt dieback events are observed in the latest state-of-the-art global climate models under anthropogenic climate change. The detected dieback events would still cause severe consequences for local communities and ecosystems. This study suggests that 7 ± 5 % of the northern South America region would experience abrupt downward shifts in vegetation carbon for every degree of global warming past 1.5 °C.
Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Matthew W. Jones, Robbie M. Andrew, Luke Gregor, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Are Olsen, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Ramdane Alkama, Almut Arneth, Vivek K. Arora, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Henry C. Bittig, Laurent Bopp, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Wiley Evans, Stefanie Falk, Richard A. Feely, Thomas Gasser, Marion Gehlen, Thanos Gkritzalis, Lucas Gloege, Giacomo Grassi, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Matthew Hefner, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Atul K. Jain, Annika Jersild, Koji Kadono, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Peter Landschützer, Nathalie Lefèvre, Keith Lindsay, Junjie Liu, Zhu Liu, Gregg Marland, Nicolas Mayot, Matthew J. McGrath, Nicolas Metzl, Natalie M. Monacci, David R. Munro, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Kevin O'Brien, Tsuneo Ono, Paul I. Palmer, Naiqing Pan, Denis Pierrot, Katie Pocock, Benjamin Poulter, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Carmen Rodriguez, Thais M. Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Roland Séférian, Jamie D. Shutler, Ingunn Skjelvan, Tobias Steinhoff, Qing Sun, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Shintaro Takao, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P. Tans, Xiangjun Tian, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Hiroyuki Tsujino, Francesco Tubiello, Guido R. van der Werf, Anthony P. Walker, Rik Wanninkhof, Chris Whitehead, Anna Willstrand Wranne, Rebecca Wright, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng, and Bo Zheng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 4811–4900, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4811-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4811-2022, 2022
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The Global Carbon Budget 2022 describes the datasets and methodology used to quantify the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their partitioning among the atmosphere, the land ecosystems, and the ocean. These living datasets are updated every year to provide the highest transparency and traceability in the reporting of CO2, the key driver of climate change.
Rebecca M. Varney, Sarah E. Chadburn, Eleanor J. Burke, and Peter M. Cox
Biogeosciences, 19, 4671–4704, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4671-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4671-2022, 2022
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Soil carbon is the Earth’s largest terrestrial carbon store, and the response to climate change represents one of the key uncertainties in obtaining accurate global carbon budgets required to successfully militate against climate change. The ability of climate models to simulate present-day soil carbon is therefore vital. This study assesses soil carbon simulation in the latest ensemble of models which allows key areas for future model development to be identified.
Taraka Davies-Barnard, Sönke Zaehle, and Pierre Friedlingstein
Biogeosciences, 19, 3491–3503, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3491-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3491-2022, 2022
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Biological nitrogen fixation is the largest natural input of new nitrogen onto land. Earth system models mainly represent global total terrestrial biological nitrogen fixation within observational uncertainties but overestimate tropical fixation. The model range of increase in biological nitrogen fixation in the SSP3-7.0 scenario is 3 % to 87 %. While biological nitrogen fixation is a key source of new nitrogen, its predictive power for net primary productivity in models is limited.
Mahdi André Nakhavali, Lina M. Mercado, Iain P. Hartley, Stephen Sitch, Fernanda V. Cunha, Raffaello di Ponzio, Laynara F. Lugli, Carlos A. Quesada, Kelly M. Andersen, Sarah E. Chadburn, Andy J. Wiltshire, Douglas B. Clark, Gyovanni Ribeiro, Lara Siebert, Anna C. M. Moraes, Jéssica Schmeisk Rosa, Rafael Assis, and José L. Camargo
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 5241–5269, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5241-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5241-2022, 2022
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In tropical ecosystems, the availability of rock-derived elements such as P can be very low. Thus, without a representation of P cycling, tropical forest responses to rising atmospheric CO2 conditions in areas such as Amazonia remain highly uncertain. We introduced P dynamics and its interactions with the N and P cycles into the JULES model. Our results highlight the potential for high P limitation and therefore lower CO2 fertilization capacity in the Amazon forest with low-fertility soils.
Noah D. Smith, Eleanor J. Burke, Kjetil Schanke Aas, Inge H. J. Althuizen, Julia Boike, Casper Tai Christiansen, Bernd Etzelmüller, Thomas Friborg, Hanna Lee, Heather Rumbold, Rachael H. Turton, Sebastian Westermann, and Sarah E. Chadburn
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 3603–3639, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-3603-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-3603-2022, 2022
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The Arctic has large areas of small mounds that are caused by ice lifting up the soil. Snow blown by wind gathers in hollows next to these mounds, insulating them in winter. The hollows tend to be wetter, and thus the soil absorbs more heat in summer. The warm wet soil in the hollows decomposes, releasing methane. We have made a model of this, and we have tested how it behaves and whether it looks like sites in Scandinavia and Siberia. Sometimes we get more methane than a model without mounds.
Shakirudeen Lawal, Stephen Sitch, Danica Lombardozzi, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Hao-Wei Wey, Pierre Friedlingstein, Hanqin Tian, and Bruce Hewitson
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 2045–2071, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2045-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2045-2022, 2022
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To investigate the impacts of drought on vegetation, which few studies have done due to various limitations, we used the leaf area index as proxy and dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) to simulate drought impacts because the models use observationally derived climate. We found that the semi-desert biome responds strongly to drought in the summer season, while the tropical forest biome shows a weak response. This study could help target areas to improve drought monitoring and simulation.
Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O'Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne Körtzinger, Peter Landschützer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefèvre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Thais M. Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland Séférian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P. Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido R. van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada, Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, and Jiye Zeng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 1917–2005, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1917-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1917-2022, 2022
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The Global Carbon Budget 2021 describes the data sets and methodology used to quantify the emissions of carbon dioxide and their partitioning among the atmosphere, land, and ocean. These living data are updated every year to provide the highest transparency and traceability in the reporting of CO2, the key driver of climate change.
Sarah E. Chadburn, Eleanor J. Burke, Angela V. Gallego-Sala, Noah D. Smith, M. Syndonia Bret-Harte, Dan J. Charman, Julia Drewer, Colin W. Edgar, Eugenie S. Euskirchen, Krzysztof Fortuniak, Yao Gao, Mahdi Nakhavali, Włodzimierz Pawlak, Edward A. G. Schuur, and Sebastian Westermann
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 1633–1657, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1633-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1633-2022, 2022
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We present a new method to include peatlands in an Earth system model (ESM). Peatlands store huge amounts of carbon that accumulates very slowly but that can be rapidly destabilised, emitting greenhouse gases. Our model captures the dynamic nature of peat by simulating the change in surface height and physical properties of the soil as carbon is added or decomposed. Thus, we model, for the first time in an ESM, peat dynamics and its threshold behaviours that can lead to destabilisation.
István Dunkl, Aaron Spring, Pierre Friedlingstein, and Victor Brovkin
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1413–1426, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1413-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1413-2021, 2021
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The variability in atmospheric CO2 is largely controlled by terrestrial carbon fluxes. These land–atmosphere fluxes are predictable for around 2 years, but the mechanisms providing the predictability are not well understood. By decomposing the predictability of carbon fluxes into individual contributors we were able to explain the spatial and seasonal patterns and the interannual variability of CO2 flux predictability.
Alexander J. Winkler, Ranga B. Myneni, Alexis Hannart, Stephen Sitch, Vanessa Haverd, Danica Lombardozzi, Vivek K. Arora, Julia Pongratz, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Daniel S. Goll, Etsushi Kato, Hanqin Tian, Almut Arneth, Pierre Friedlingstein, Atul K. Jain, Sönke Zaehle, and Victor Brovkin
Biogeosciences, 18, 4985–5010, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4985-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4985-2021, 2021
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Satellite observations since the early 1980s show that Earth's greening trend is slowing down and that browning clusters have been emerging, especially in the last 2 decades. A collection of model simulations in conjunction with causal theory points at climatic changes as a key driver of vegetation changes in natural ecosystems. Most models underestimate the observed vegetation browning, especially in tropical rainforests, which could be due to an excessive CO2 fertilization effect in models.
Thomas Schneider von Deimling, Hanna Lee, Thomas Ingeman-Nielsen, Sebastian Westermann, Vladimir Romanovsky, Scott Lamoureux, Donald A. Walker, Sarah Chadburn, Erin Trochim, Lei Cai, Jan Nitzbon, Stephan Jacobi, and Moritz Langer
The Cryosphere, 15, 2451–2471, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-2451-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-2451-2021, 2021
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Climate warming puts infrastructure built on permafrost at risk of failure. There is a growing need for appropriate model-based risk assessments. Here we present a modelling study and show an exemplary case of how a gravel road in a cold permafrost environment in Alaska might suffer from degrading permafrost under a scenario of intense climate warming. We use this case study to discuss the broader-scale applicability of our model for simulating future Arctic infrastructure failure.
Garry D. Hayman, Edward Comyn-Platt, Chris Huntingford, Anna B. Harper, Tom Powell, Peter M. Cox, William Collins, Christopher Webber, Jason Lowe, Stephen Sitch, Joanna I. House, Jonathan C. Doelman, Detlef P. van Vuuren, Sarah E. Chadburn, Eleanor Burke, and Nicola Gedney
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 513–544, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-513-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-513-2021, 2021
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We model greenhouse gas emission scenarios consistent with limiting global warming to either 1.5 or 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. We quantify the effectiveness of methane emission control and land-based mitigation options regionally. Our results highlight the importance of reducing methane emissions for realistic emission pathways that meet the global warming targets. For land-based mitigation, growing bioenergy crops on existing agricultural land is preferable to replacing forests.
Zichong Chen, Junjie Liu, Daven K. Henze, Deborah N. Huntzinger, Kelley C. Wells, Stephen Sitch, Pierre Friedlingstein, Emilie Joetzjer, Vladislav Bastrikov, Daniel S. Goll, Vanessa Haverd, Atul K. Jain, Etsushi Kato, Sebastian Lienert, Danica L. Lombardozzi, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Benjamin Poulter, Hanqin Tian, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Sönke Zaehle, and Scot M. Miller
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 6663–6680, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6663-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6663-2021, 2021
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NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) satellite observes atmospheric CO2 globally. We use a multiple regression and inverse model to quantify the relationships between OCO-2 and environmental drivers within individual years for 2015–2018 and within seven global biomes. Our results point to limitations of current space-based observations for inferring environmental relationships but also indicate the potential to inform key relationships that are very uncertain in process-based models.
Andrew J. Wiltshire, Eleanor J. Burke, Sarah E. Chadburn, Chris D. Jones, Peter M. Cox, Taraka Davies-Barnard, Pierre Friedlingstein, Anna B. Harper, Spencer Liddicoat, Stephen Sitch, and Sönke Zaehle
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 2161–2186, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-2161-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-2161-2021, 2021
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Limited nitrogen availbility can restrict the growth of plants and their ability to assimilate carbon. It is important to include the impact of this process on the global land carbon cycle. This paper presents a model of the coupled land carbon and nitrogen cycle, which is included within the UK Earth System model to improve projections of climate change and impacts on ecosystems.
Claudia Tebaldi, Kevin Debeire, Veronika Eyring, Erich Fischer, John Fyfe, Pierre Friedlingstein, Reto Knutti, Jason Lowe, Brian O'Neill, Benjamin Sanderson, Detlef van Vuuren, Keywan Riahi, Malte Meinshausen, Zebedee Nicholls, Katarzyna B. Tokarska, George Hurtt, Elmar Kriegler, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Gerald Meehl, Richard Moss, Susanne E. Bauer, Olivier Boucher, Victor Brovkin, Young-Hwa Byun, Martin Dix, Silvio Gualdi, Huan Guo, Jasmin G. John, Slava Kharin, YoungHo Kim, Tsuyoshi Koshiro, Libin Ma, Dirk Olivié, Swapna Panickal, Fangli Qiao, Xinyao Rong, Nan Rosenbloom, Martin Schupfner, Roland Séférian, Alistair Sellar, Tido Semmler, Xiaoying Shi, Zhenya Song, Christian Steger, Ronald Stouffer, Neil Swart, Kaoru Tachiiri, Qi Tang, Hiroaki Tatebe, Aurore Voldoire, Evgeny Volodin, Klaus Wyser, Xiaoge Xin, Shuting Yang, Yongqiang Yu, and Tilo Ziehn
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 253–293, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-253-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-253-2021, 2021
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We present an overview of CMIP6 ScenarioMIP outcomes from up to 38 participating ESMs according to the new SSP-based scenarios. Average temperature and precipitation projections according to a wide range of forcings, spanning a wider range than the CMIP5 projections, are documented as global averages and geographic patterns. Times of crossing various warming levels are computed, together with benefits of mitigation for selected pairs of scenarios. Comparisons with CMIP5 are also discussed.
Richard Essery, Hyungjun Kim, Libo Wang, Paul Bartlett, Aaron Boone, Claire Brutel-Vuilmet, Eleanor Burke, Matthias Cuntz, Bertrand Decharme, Emanuel Dutra, Xing Fang, Yeugeniy Gusev, Stefan Hagemann, Vanessa Haverd, Anna Kontu, Gerhard Krinner, Matthieu Lafaysse, Yves Lejeune, Thomas Marke, Danny Marks, Christoph Marty, Cecile B. Menard, Olga Nasonova, Tomoko Nitta, John Pomeroy, Gerd Schädler, Vladimir Semenov, Tatiana Smirnova, Sean Swenson, Dmitry Turkov, Nander Wever, and Hua Yuan
The Cryosphere, 14, 4687–4698, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4687-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4687-2020, 2020
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Climate models are uncertain in predicting how warming changes snow cover. This paper compares 22 snow models with the same meteorological inputs. Predicted trends agree with observations at four snow research sites: winter snow cover does not start later, but snow now melts earlier in spring than in the 1980s at two of the sites. Cold regions where snow can last until late summer are predicted to be particularly sensitive to warming because the snow then melts faster at warmer times of year.
Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Matthew W. Jones, Robbie M. Andrew, Judith Hauck, Are Olsen, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Corinne Le Quéré, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson, Simone Alin, Luiz E. O. C. Aragão, Almut Arneth, Vivek Arora, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Alice Benoit-Cattin, Henry C. Bittig, Laurent Bopp, Selma Bultan, Naveen Chandra, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Wiley Evans, Liesbeth Florentie, Piers M. Forster, Thomas Gasser, Marion Gehlen, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Ian Harris, Kerstin Hartung, Vanessa Haverd, Richard A. Houghton, Tatiana Ilyina, Atul K. Jain, Emilie Joetzjer, Koji Kadono, Etsushi Kato, Vassilis Kitidis, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Peter Landschützer, Nathalie Lefèvre, Andrew Lenton, Sebastian Lienert, Zhu Liu, Danica Lombardozzi, Gregg Marland, Nicolas Metzl, David R. Munro, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Kevin O'Brien, Tsuneo Ono, Paul I. Palmer, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Jörg Schwinger, Roland Séférian, Ingunn Skjelvan, Adam J. P. Smith, Adrienne J. Sutton, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P. Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Anthony P. Walker, Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Xu Yue, and Sönke Zaehle
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 3269–3340, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3269-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3269-2020, 2020
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The Global Carbon Budget 2020 describes the data sets and methodology used to quantify the emissions of carbon dioxide and their partitioning among the atmosphere, land, and ocean. These living data are updated every year to provide the highest transparency and traceability in the reporting of CO2, the key driver of climate change.
Bettina K. Gier, Michael Buchwitz, Maximilian Reuter, Peter M. Cox, Pierre Friedlingstein, and Veronika Eyring
Biogeosciences, 17, 6115–6144, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-6115-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-6115-2020, 2020
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Models from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) phases 5 and 6 are compared to a satellite data product of column-averaged CO2 mole fractions (XCO2). The previously believed discrepancy of the negative trend in seasonal cycle amplitude in the satellite product, which is not seen in in situ data nor in the models, is attributed to a sampling characteristic. Furthermore, CMIP6 models are shown to have made progress in reproducing the observed XCO2 time series compared to CMIP5.
Taraka Davies-Barnard, Johannes Meyerholt, Sönke Zaehle, Pierre Friedlingstein, Victor Brovkin, Yuanchao Fan, Rosie A. Fisher, Chris D. Jones, Hanna Lee, Daniele Peano, Benjamin Smith, David Wårlind, and Andy J. Wiltshire
Biogeosciences, 17, 5129–5148, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-5129-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-5129-2020, 2020
Eleanor J. Burke, Yu Zhang, and Gerhard Krinner
The Cryosphere, 14, 3155–3174, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3155-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-3155-2020, 2020
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Permafrost will degrade under future climate change. This will have implications locally for the northern high-latitude regions and may well also amplify global climate change. There have been some recent improvements in the ability of earth system models to simulate the permafrost physical state, but further model developments are required. Models project the thawed volume of soil in the top 2 m of permafrost will increase by 10 %–40 % °C−1 of global mean surface air temperature increase.
Arthur P. K. Argles, Jonathan R. Moore, Chris Huntingford, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Anna B. Harper, Chris D. Jones, and Peter M. Cox
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 4067–4089, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4067-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4067-2020, 2020
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The Robust Ecosystem Demography (RED) model simulates cohorts of vegetation through mass classes. RED establishes a framework for representing demographic changes through competition, growth, and mortality across the size distribution of a forest. The steady state of the model can be solved analytically, enabling initialization. When driven by mean growth rates from a land-surface model, RED is able to fit the observed global vegetation map, giving a map of implicit mortality rates.
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Short summary
Soil carbon is the largest store of carbon on the land surface of Earth and is known to be particularly sensitive to climate change. Understanding this future response is vital to successfully meeting Paris Agreement targets, which rely heavily on carbon uptake by the land surface. In this study, the individual responses of soil carbon are quantified and compared amongst CMIP6 Earth system models used within the most recent IPCC report, and the role of soils in the land response is highlighted.
Soil carbon is the largest store of carbon on the land surface of Earth and is known to be...
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