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Title: Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems

Journal Article · · Nature Climate Change
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3310· OSTI ID:1362194
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3];  [3]; ORCiD logo [2];  [4];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [3];  [2];  [5];  [3];  [3];  [1];  [4]
  1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Climate Change Science Inst.
  2. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Joint Global Change Research Inst.
  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  4. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  5. Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, Washington, DC (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Fossil fuel combustion and land-use change are the two largest contributors to industrial-era increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Projections of these are thus fundamental inputs for coupled Earth system models (ESMs) used to estimate the physical and biological consequences of future climate system forcing. While historical datasets are available to inform past and current climate analyses, assessments of future climate change have relied on projections of energy and land use from energy economic models, constrained by assumptions about future policy, land-use patterns, and socio-economic development trajectories. We show that the climatic impacts on land ecosystems drives significant feedbacks in energy, agriculture, land-use, and carbon cycle projections for the 21st century. We also find that exposure of human appropriated land ecosystem productivity to biospheric change results in reductions of land area used for crops; increases in managed forest area and carbon stocks; decreases in global crop prices; and reduction in fossil fuel emissions for a low-mid range forcing scenario. Furthermore, the feedbacks between climate-induced biospheric change and human system forcings to the climate system demonstrated here are handled inconsistently, or excluded altogether, in the one-way asynchronous coupling of energy economic models to ESMs used to date.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1362194
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1426727
Journal Information:
Nature Climate Change, Vol. 2017; ISSN 1758-678X
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 32 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (6)

Interactions Between Land-Use Change and Climate-Carbon Cycle Feedbacks journal April 2018
Economic carbon cycle feedbacks may offset additional warming from natural feedbacks journal December 2018
Integrated human-earth system modeling—state of the science and future directions journal June 2018
Towards representing human behavior and decision making in Earth system models – an overview of techniques and approaches journal January 2017
On deeper human dimensions in Earth system analysis and modelling journal January 2018
Towards representing human behavior and decision making in Earth system models - An overview of techniques and approaches other January 2017

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
biogeochemistry
climate and earth system modelling
socioeconomic scenarios