Starley L. Thompson

Quantifying the effects of CO2‐fertilized vegetation on future global climate and carbon dynamics

Climate and the global carbon cycle are a tightly coupled system where changes in climate affect exchange of atmospheric CO{sup 2} with the land biosphere and the ocean, and vice-versa. In particular, the response of the land biosphere to the ongoing increase in atmospheric CO{sup 2} is not well understood. To evaluate the approximate upper and lower limits of land carbon uptake, we perform simulations using a comprehensive climate-carbon model. In one case the land biosphere is vigorously fertilized by added CO{sup 2} and sequesters carbon throughout the 21st century. In a second case, CO{sup 2} fertilization saturates in year 2000; here the land becomes an additional source of CO{sup 2} by 2050. The predicted atmospheric CO{sup 2} concentration at year 2100 differs by 40% between the two cases. We show that current uncertainties preclude determination of whether the land biosphere will amplify or damp atmospheric CO{sup 2} increases by the end of the century.

Increase of carbon cycle feedback with climate sensitivity: results from a coupled climate and carbon cycle model

Coupled climate and carbon cycle modelling studies have shown that the feedback between global warming and the carbon cycle, in particular the terrestrial carbon cycle, could accelerate climate change and result in greater warming. In this paper we investigate the sensitivity of this feedback for year 2100 global warming in the range of 0 to 8 K. Differing climate sensitivities to increased CO2content are imposed on the carbon cycle models for the same emissions. Emissions from the SRES A2 scenario are used. We use a fully coupled climate and carbon cycle model, the INtegrated Climate and CArbon model (INCCA), the NCAR/DOE Parallel Climate Model coupled to the IBIS terrestrial biosphere model and a modified OCMIP ocean biogeochemistry model. In our integrated model, for scenarios with year 2100 global warming increasing from 0 to 8 K, land uptake decreases from 47% to 29% of total CO2emissions. Due to competing effects, ocean uptake (16%) shows almost no change at all. Atmospheric CO2 concentration increases are 48% higher in the run with 8 K global climate warming than in the case with no warming. Our results indicate that carbon cycle amplification of climate warming will be greater if there is higher climate sensitivity to increased atmospheric CO2 content; the carbon cycle feedback factor increases from 1.13 to 1.48 when global warming increases from 3.2 to 8 K.

Late Cretaceous climate and vegetation interactions: Cold continental interior paradox

The Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous was warm, with no evidence for permanent or seasonal sea ice at high latitudes. Sea level was high, creating extensive epicontinental and shallow shelf seas. Very low meridional thermal gradients existed in the oceans and on land. Campanian (80 Ma) climate and vegetation have been simulated using GENESIS (Global ENvironmental and Ecological Simulation of Interactive Systems) Version 2.0 and EVE (Equilibrium Vegetation Ecology model), developed by the Climate Change Research section of the Climate and Global Dynamics division at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research). GENESIS is a comprehensive Earth system model, requiring high resolution (2^circ by 2^circ) solid earth boundary condition data as input for paleoclimate simulations. Boundary condition data define certain prescribed global fields such as the distribution of land-sea-ice, topography, orographic roughness, and soil texture, as well as atmospheric chemistry, the solar constant, and orbital parameters that define the latitudinal distribution of solar insolation. A comprehensive, high resolution paleogeography has been reconstructed for the Campanian. The paleogeography, based on a new global plate tectonic model, provides the framework for the solid earth boundary conditions used in the paleoclimate simulation. Because terrestrial ecosystems influence global climate by affecting the exchange of energy, water and momentum between the land surface and the atmosphere, the distribution of global vegetation should be included in pre-Quaternary paleoclimate simulations. However, reconstructing global vegetation distributions from the fossil record is difficult. EVE predicts the equilibrium state of plant community structure as a function of climate and fundamental ecological principles. The model has been modified to reproduce a vegetation distribution based on life forms that existed in the Late Cretaceous. EVE has been applied as a fully interactive component of the Campanian simulation. 1500 ppm CO_2 and a QFACTOR of 4 were sufficient to maintain forest over Antarctica and high northern latitudes. The QFACTOR is the multiplicative of the oceanic heat diffusion coefficient in the slab-mixed layer ocean component of GENESIS. The simulated Campanian oceanic heat transport has maximum values of about 1.7 times 10^{15} W at 25 ^circ north and 2.6 times 10^{15} W at 25^ circ south, similar to present day observed values. Late Cretaceous forests played an important role in the maintenance of low meridional thermal gradients, polar warmth, and equable continental interiors. The Campanian high to polar latitude forests decreased surface albedo (especially in late winter-early spring, prior to snow melt), and increased net radiation and fluxes of sensible and latent heat. This warmed the high latitude troposphere and increased atmospheric moisture. The warmer atmospheric temperatures reduced winter cooling of the high latitude sea surface and aided the advection of warm, moist air from the oceans into the continental interiors.