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Title: Climate and carbon budget implications of linked future changes in CO2 and non-CO2 forcing

Abstract

The approximate proportional relationship between cumulative carbon emissions and instantaneous global temperature rise (the carbon budget approximation) has proven to be a useful concept to translate policy-relevant temperature objectives into CO2 emissions pathways. However, when non-CO2 forcing is changing along with CO2 forcing, errors in the approximation increases. Using the GCAM model to produce an ensemble of ~3000 scenarios, we show that linked changes in CO2 forcing, aerosol forcing, and non-CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing lead to an increase in total non-CO2 forcing over the 21st century across mitigation scenarios. This increase causes the relationship between instantaneous temperature and cumulative CO2 emissions to become more complex than the proportional approximation often assumed, particularly for low temperature objectives such as 1.5 °C. The same linked changes in emissions also contribute to a near-term increase in aerosol forcing that effectively places a limit on how low peak temperature could be constrained through GHG mitigation alone. In particular, we find that 23% of scenarios that include CCS (but only 1% of scenarios that do not include CCS) achieve a temperature objective of 1.5 °C without temperature overshoot.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [3]
  1. Pontifical Catholic Univ. of Valparaiso (Chile). School of Industrial Engineering; Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), College Park, MD (United States). Joint Global Change Research Inst.
  2. ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, Annandale, NJ (United States)
  3. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), College Park, MD (United States). Joint Global Change Research Inst.
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), College Park, MD (United States); ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, Annandale, NJ (United States); Pontifical Catholic Univ. of Valparaiso (Chile)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE; ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company (United States); National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FONDECYT) (Chile)
OSTI Identifier:
1511178
Report Number(s):
PNNL-ACT-SA-10335
Journal ID: ISSN 1748-9326
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-76RL01830; 11181176
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Environmental Research Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 14; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher:
IOP Publishing
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; carbon budget; non-CO2; cumulative carbon emissions; global temperature; radiative forcing

Citation Formats

Feijoo, Felipe, Mignone, Bryan K., Kheshgi, Haroon S., Hartin, Corinne, McJeon, Haewon, and Edmonds, Jae. Climate and carbon budget implications of linked future changes in CO2 and non-CO2 forcing. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab08a9.
Feijoo, Felipe, Mignone, Bryan K., Kheshgi, Haroon S., Hartin, Corinne, McJeon, Haewon, & Edmonds, Jae. Climate and carbon budget implications of linked future changes in CO2 and non-CO2 forcing. United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab08a9
Feijoo, Felipe, Mignone, Bryan K., Kheshgi, Haroon S., Hartin, Corinne, McJeon, Haewon, and Edmonds, Jae. Wed . "Climate and carbon budget implications of linked future changes in CO2 and non-CO2 forcing". United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab08a9. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1511178.
@article{osti_1511178,
title = {Climate and carbon budget implications of linked future changes in CO2 and non-CO2 forcing},
author = {Feijoo, Felipe and Mignone, Bryan K. and Kheshgi, Haroon S. and Hartin, Corinne and McJeon, Haewon and Edmonds, Jae},
abstractNote = {The approximate proportional relationship between cumulative carbon emissions and instantaneous global temperature rise (the carbon budget approximation) has proven to be a useful concept to translate policy-relevant temperature objectives into CO2 emissions pathways. However, when non-CO2 forcing is changing along with CO2 forcing, errors in the approximation increases. Using the GCAM model to produce an ensemble of ~3000 scenarios, we show that linked changes in CO2 forcing, aerosol forcing, and non-CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing lead to an increase in total non-CO2 forcing over the 21st century across mitigation scenarios. This increase causes the relationship between instantaneous temperature and cumulative CO2 emissions to become more complex than the proportional approximation often assumed, particularly for low temperature objectives such as 1.5 °C. The same linked changes in emissions also contribute to a near-term increase in aerosol forcing that effectively places a limit on how low peak temperature could be constrained through GHG mitigation alone. In particular, we find that 23% of scenarios that include CCS (but only 1% of scenarios that do not include CCS) achieve a temperature objective of 1.5 °C without temperature overshoot.},
doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/ab08a9},
journal = {Environmental Research Letters},
number = 4,
volume = 14,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Feb 20 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Wed Feb 20 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}

Journal Article:
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Cited by: 19 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Emissions and key projected climate outcomes for the 1500 unique scenarios that include CCS. Colors reflect the temperature change achieved in 2100 as indicated in the legend. Temperature change shown in panels (d) and (f) are measured with respect to preindustrial conditions. CO2 emissions in panel (a) aremore » fossil fuel and industrial emissions only, whereas cumulative CO2 emissions in panel (f) include land use change emissions in addition to fossil fuel and industrial emissions. Cumulative CO2 emissions in panel (f) are measured with respect to 1870 (cumulative CO2 emissions between 1870 and 2009 were 1779 GtCO2). SOX radiative forcing shown in panel (e) refers to direct forcing from sulfate aerosol only; the indirect effect is included in the total forcing shown in panel (c). A larger version of panel (f) is provided in the supplementary material (figure S6 is available online at stacks.iop.org/ERL/ 14/044007/mmedia). An analogous set of panels for the scenarios without CCS is shown in figure S5.« less

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Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.