Is crop biomass and soil carbon storage sustainable with long-term application of full plastic film mulching under future climate change?

Given the inherent uncertainties in predicting how climate and environments will respond to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, it would be beneficial to society if science could identify geological analogues to the human race’s current grand climate experiment . This has been a focus of the geological and palaeoclimate communities over the last 30 years, with many scientific papers claiming that intervals in Earth history can be used as an analogue for future climate change. Using a coupled ocean–atmosphere modelling approach, we test this assertion for the most probable pre-Quaternary candidates of the last 100 million years: the Mid- and Late Cretaceous, the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), the Early Eocene, as well as warm intervals within the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. These intervals fail as true direct analogues since they either represent equilibrium climate states to a long-term CO 2 forcing—whereas anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases provide a progressive (transient) forcing on climate—or the sensitivity of the climate system itself to CO 2 was different. While no close geological analogue exists, past warm intervals in Earth history provide a unique opportunity to investigate processes that operated during warm (high CO 2 ) climate states. Palaeoclimate and environmental reconstruction/modelling are facilitating the assessment and calculation of the response of global temperatures to increasing CO 2 concentrations in the longer term (multiple centuries); this is now referred to as the Earth System Sensitivity, which is critical in identifying CO 2 thresholds in the atmosphere that must not be crossed to avoid dangerous levels of climate change in the long term. Palaeoclimatology also provides a unique and independent way to evaluate the qualities of climate and Earth system models used to predict future climate.

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Long-term effects of silviculture on soil carbon storage: does vegetation control make a difference?

Forestry An International Journal of Forest Research ◽

10.1093/forestry/cps067 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 86 (1) ◽

pp. 47-58 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

R. F. Powers ◽

M. D. Busse ◽

K. J. McFarlane ◽

J. Zhang ◽

D. H. Young

Keyword(s):

Soil Carbon ◽

Carbon Storage ◽

Soil Carbon Storage ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Vegetation Control

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Past temperature reconstructions from deep ice cores: relevance for future climate change

Climate of the Past ◽

10.5194/cp-2-145-2006 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 145-165 ◽

Cited By ~ 77

Author(s):

V. Masson-Delmotte ◽

G. Dreyfus ◽

P. Braconnot ◽

S. Johnsen ◽

J. Jouzel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Temperature Change ◽

Climate Models ◽

Ice Core ◽

Ice Cores ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Interglacial Period ◽

Temperature Reconstructions

Abstract. Ice cores provide unique archives of past climate and environmental changes based only on physical processes. Quantitative temperature reconstructions are essential for the comparison between ice core records and climate models. We give an overview of the methods that have been developed to reconstruct past local temperatures from deep ice cores and highlight several points that are relevant for future climate change. We first analyse the long term fluctuations of temperature as depicted in the long Antarctic record from EPICA Dome C. The long term imprint of obliquity changes in the EPICA Dome C record is highlighted and compared to simulations conducted with the ECBILT-CLIO intermediate complexity climate model. We discuss the comparison between the current interglacial period and the long interglacial corresponding to marine isotopic stage 11, ~400 kyr BP. Previous studies had focused on the role of precession and the thresholds required to induce glacial inceptions. We suggest that, due to the low eccentricity configuration of MIS 11 and the Holocene, the effect of precession on the incoming solar radiation is damped and that changes in obliquity must be taken into account. The EPICA Dome C alignment of terminations I and VI published in 2004 corresponds to a phasing of the obliquity signals. A conjunction of low obliquity and minimum northern hemisphere summer insolation is not found in the next tens of thousand years, supporting the idea of an unusually long interglacial ahead. As a second point relevant for future climate change, we discuss the magnitude and rate of change of past temperatures reconstructed from Greenland (NorthGRIP) and Antarctic (Dome C) ice cores. Past episodes of temperatures above the present-day values by up to 5°C are recorded at both locations during the penultimate interglacial period. The rate of polar warming simulated by coupled climate models forced by a CO2 increase of 1% per year is compared to ice-core-based temperature reconstructions. In Antarctica, the CO2-induced warming lies clearly beyond the natural rhythm of temperature fluctuations. In Greenland, the CO2-induced warming is as fast or faster than the most rapid temperature shifts of the last ice age. The magnitude of polar temperature change in response to a quadrupling of atmospheric CO2 is comparable to the magnitude of the polar temperature change from the Last Glacial Maximum to present-day. When forced by prescribed changes in ice sheet reconstructions and CO2 changes, climate models systematically underestimate the glacial-interglacial polar temperature change.

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The Impact of Possible Decadal-Scale Cold Waves on Viticulture over Europe in a Context of Global Warming

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy9070397 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (7) ◽

pp. 397 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Giovanni Sgubin ◽

Didier Swingedouw ◽

Iñaki García de Cortázar-Atauri ◽

Nathalie Ollat ◽

Cornelis van Leeuwen

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

21St Century ◽

Developmental Stages ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Cold Waves ◽

Decadal Scale ◽

Ensemble Mean ◽

The Impact

A comprehensive analysis of all the possible impacts of future climate change is crucial for strategic plans of adaptation for viticulture. Assessments of future climate are generally based on the ensemble mean of state-of-the-art climate model projections, which prefigures a gradual warming over Europe for the 21st century. However, a few models project single or multiple O(10) year temperature drops over the North Atlantic due to a collapsing subpolar gyre (SPG) oceanic convection. The occurrence of these decadal-scale “cold waves” may have strong repercussions over the continent, yet their actual impact is ruled out in a multi-model ensemble mean analysis. Here, we investigate these potential implications for viticulture over Europe by coupling dynamical downscaled EUR-CORDEX temperature projections for the representative concentration pathways (RCP)4.5 scenario from seven different climate models—including CSIRO-Mk3-6-0 exhibiting a SPG convection collapse—with three different phenological models simulating the main developmental stages of the grapevine. The 21st century temperature increase projected by all the models leads to an anticipation of all the developmental stages of the grapevine, shifting the optimal region for a given grapevine variety northward, and making climatic conditions suitable for high-quality wine production in some European regions that are currently not. However, in the CSIRO-Mk3-6-0 model, this long-term warming trend is suddenly interrupted by decadal-scale cold waves, abruptly pushing the suitability pattern back to conditions that are very similar to the present. These findings are crucial for winemakers in the evaluation of proper strategies to face climate change, and, overall, provide additional information for long-term plans of adaptation, which, so far, are mainly oriented towards the possibility of continuous warming conditions.

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Managing organic amendments in agroecosystems to enhance soil carbon storage and mitigate climate change

Climate Change and Soil Interactions ◽

10.1016/b978-0-12-818032-7.00005-9 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 89-141 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Paula Alvarenga ◽

João Paulo Carneiro ◽

David Fangueiro ◽

Cláudia M.d.S. Cordovil ◽

Maria Pilar Bernal

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Soil Carbon ◽

Carbon Storage ◽

Organic Amendments ◽

Soil Carbon Storage ◽

Mitigate Climate Change

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Modelling soil carbon stocks in semi-natural and agro-ecosystems – quantifying national scale impacts of the Anthropocene

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-18355 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Victoria Janes-Bassett ◽

Jessica Davies ◽

Richard Bassett ◽

Dmitry Yumashev ◽

Ed Rowe ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Nutrient Cycling ◽

Soil Carbon ◽

Carbon Storage ◽

Management Practices ◽

Carbon Stocks ◽

Soil Carbon Storage ◽

National Scale ◽

Soil Carbon Stocks

Throughout the Anthropocene, the conversion of land to agriculture and atmospheric deposition of nitrogen have resulted in significant changes to biogeochemical cycling, including soil carbon stocks. Quantifying these changes is complex due to a number of influential factors (including climate, land use management, soil type) and their interactions. As the largest terrestrial store of carbon, soils are a key component in climate regulation. In addition, soil carbon storage contributes to numerous ecosystem services including food provision. It is therefore imperative that we understand changes to soil carbon stocks, and provide effective strategies for their future management.Modelling soil systems provides a means to estimate changes to soil carbon stocks. Due to linkages between the carbon cycle and other major nutrient cycles (notably nitrogen and phosphorus which often limit the productivity of ecosystems), models of integrated nutrient cycling are required to understand the response of the carbon cycle to global pressures. Simulating the impacts of land use changes requires capacity to model both semi-natural and intensive agricultural systems.In this study, we have developed an integrated carbon-nitrogen-phosphorus model of semi-natural systems to include representation of both arable and grassland systems, and a range of agricultural management practices. The model is applicable to large spatial scales, as it uses readily available input data and does not require site-specific calibration. &#160;After being validated both spatially and temporally using data from long-term experimental sites across Northern-Europe, the model was applied at a national scale throughout the United Kingdom to assess the impacts of land use change and management practices during the last two centuries. Results indicate a decrease in soil carbon in areas of agricultural expansion, yet in areas of semi-natural land use, atmospheric deposition of nitrogen has resulted in increased net primary productivity and subsequently soil carbon. The results demonstrate anthropogenic impacts on long-term nutrient cycling and soil carbon storage, and the importance of integrated nutrient cycling within models.

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