Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Plattner, G.-K.
• Joos, F.
• Stocker, T. F.
• Marchal, O.

Titel

Feedback mechanisms and sensitivities of ocean carbon uptake under global warming

Ist Teil von

• Tellus. Series B, Chemical and physical meteorology, 2001, Vol.53 (5), p.564-592

Ort / Verlag

Oxford: Taylor & Francis

Erscheinungsjahr

2001

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Wiley Online Library Journals Frontfile Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Global warming simulations are performed with a coupled climate model of reduced complexity to investigate global warming-marine carbon cycle feedbacks. The model is forced by emissions of CO 2 and other greenhouse agents from scenarios recently developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and by CO 2 stabilization profiles. The uptake of atmospheric CO 2 by the ocean is reduced between 7 to 10% by year 2100 compared to simulations without global warming. The reduction is of similar size in the Southern Ocean and in low-latitude regions (32.5°S-32.5°N) until 2100, whereas low-latitude regions dominate on longer time scales. In the North Atlantic the CO 2 uptake is enhanced, unless the Atlantic thermohaline circulation completely collapses. At high latitudes, biologically mediated changes enhance ocean CO 2 uptake, whereas in low-latitude regions the situation is reversed. Different implementations of the marine biosphere yield a range of 5 to 16% for the total reduction in oceanic CO 2 uptake until year 2100. Modeled oceanic O 2 inventories are significantly reduced in global warming simulations. This suggests that the terrestrial carbon sink deduced from atmospheric O 2 /N 2 observations is potentially overestimated if the oceanic loss of O 2 to the atmosphere is not considered.