A spatial emergent constraint on the sensitivity of soil carbon turnover to global warming

Varney, Rebecca M.; Chadburn, Sarah E.; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Burke, Eleanor J.; Koven, Charles D.; Hugelius, Gustaf; Cox, Peter M.

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19208-8

Title: A spatial emergent constraint on the sensitivity of soil carbon turnover to global warming

Journal Article · Mon Nov 02 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19208-8· OSTI ID:1798740

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University of Exeter, Exeter (United Kingdom)
University of Exeter, Exeter (United Kingdom); École normale supérieure (ENS), Paris (France); Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, Guyancourt (France). Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD); Paris Sciences et Lettres University, Paris (France); Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau (France); Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Palaiseau (France); Sorbonne Univ., Paris (France)
Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter (United Kingdom)
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Stockholm Univ. (Sweden)

Carbon cycle feedbacks represent large uncertainties in climate change projections, and the response of soil carbon to climate change contributes the greatest uncertainty to this. Future changes in soil carbon depend on changes in litter and root inputs from plants and especially on reductions in the turnover time of soil carbon (τ_s) with warming. An approximation to the latter term for the top one metre of soil (ΔC_s,τ) can be diagnosed from projections made with the CMIP6 and CMIP5 Earth System Models (ESMs), and is found to span a large range even at 2 °C of global warming (-196 ± 117 PgC). Here, we present a constraint on ΔC_s,τ, which makes use of current heterotrophic respiration and the spatial variability of τs inferred from observations. This spatial emergent constraint allows us to halve the uncertainty in ΔC_s,τ at 2 °C to -232 ± 52 PgC.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); European Union (EU); Swedish Research Council (SRC)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; NE/R015791/1; 821003; 641816

OSTI ID:: 1798740

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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The potential for structural errors in emergent constraints Sanderson, Benjamin M.; Pendergrass, Angeline G.; Koven, Charles D. Earth System Dynamics, Vol. 12, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-899-2021	journal	January 2021

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