Glacial to Interglacial Changes in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide: The Critical Role of Ocean Surface Water in High Latitudes

2013 ◽  
pp. 163-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Toggweiler ◽  
J. L. Sarmiento
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Ocean Surface ◽  
High Latitudes ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon

scholarly journals The Influence of Ocean Thermocline Temperatures on the Earth’s Surface Climate

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (13) ◽  
pp. 2222-2246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Oglesby ◽  
Monica Y. Stephens ◽  
Barry Saltzman
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Mixed Layer ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
High Latitudes ◽  
Surface Climate ◽  
Low Latitudes ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon ◽  
The Impact

Abstract A coupled mixed layer–atmospheric general circulation model has been used to evaluate the impact of ocean thermocline temperatures (and by proxy those of the deep ocean) on the surface climate of the earth. Particular attention has been devoted to temperature regimes both warmer and cooler than at present. The mixed layer ocean model (MLOM) simulates vertical dynamics and thermodynamics in the upper ocean, including wind mixing and buoyancy effects, and has been coupled to the NCAR Community Climate Model (CCM3). Simulations were made with globally uniform thermocline warmings of +2°, +5°, and +10°C, as well as a globally uniform cooling of −5°C. A simulation was made with latitudinally varying changes in thermocline temperature such that the warming at mid- and high latitudes is much larger than at low latitudes. In all simulations, the response of surface temperature over both land and ocean was larger than that expected just as a result of the imposed thermocline temperature change, largely because of water vapor feedbacks. In this respect, the simulations were similar to those in which only changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide were imposed. In fact, when carbon dioxide was explicitly changed along with thermocline temperatures, the results were not much different than if only the thermocline temperatures were altered. Land versus ocean differences are explained largely by latent heat flux differences: the ocean is an infinite evaporative source, while land can be quite dry. The latitudinally varying case has a much larger response at mid- to high latitudes than at low latitudes; the high latitudes actually appear to effectively warm the low latitudes. Simulations exploring scenarios of glacial inception suggest that the deep ocean alone is not likely to be a key trigger but must operate in conjunction with other forcings, such as reduced carbon dioxide. Moist upland regions at mid- and high latitudes, and land regions adjacent to perennial sea ice, are the preferred locations for glacial inception in these runs. Finally, the model combination equilibrates very rapidly, meaning that a large number of simulations can be made for a fairly modest computational cost. A drawback to this is greatly reduced sensitivity to parameters such as atmospheric carbon dioxide, which requires a full response of the ocean. Thus, this approach can be considered intermediate between fixing, or prescribing, sea surface temperatures and a fully coupled modeling approach.

Role of atmospheric carbon dioxide in climate change

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 785-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hertzberg ◽  
Hans Schreuder
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon

The role of building energy efficiency in managing atmospheric carbon dioxide

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Wiel ◽  
Nathan Martin ◽  
Mark Levine ◽  
Lynn Price ◽  
Jayant Sathaye
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Building Energy Efficiency ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon

scholarly journals Atmospheric carbon dioxide: a driver of photosynthetic eukaryote evolution for over a billion years?

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1588) ◽  
pp. 477-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Beerling
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Photosynthetic Eukaryote ◽  
Ecosystem Responses ◽  
Photosynthetic Eukaryotes ◽  
Evolutionary Changes ◽  
Eukaryote Evolution ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon

Exciting evidence from diverse fields, including physiology, evolutionary biology, palaeontology, geosciences and molecular genetics, is providing an increasingly secure basis for robustly formulating and evaluating hypotheses concerning the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in the evolution of photosynthetic eukaryotes. Such studies span over a billion years of evolutionary change, from the origins of eukaryotic algae through to the evolution of our present-day terrestrial floras, and have relevance for plant and ecosystem responses to future global CO 2 increases. The papers in this issue reflect the breadth and depth of approaches being adopted to address this issue. They reveal new discoveries pointing to deep evidence for the role of CO 2 in shaping evolutionary changes in plants and ecosystems, and establish an exciting cross-disciplinary research agenda for uncovering new insights into feedbacks between biology and the Earth system.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide and forests

1989 ◽  
Vol 324 (1223) ◽  
pp. 369-392 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Forest Resource ◽  
Atmospheric Concentration ◽  
Inadequate Information ◽  
Direct Measurements ◽  
Seasonal Oscillation ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon

Knowledge about the effects of the rise in atmospheric CO 2 concentration on trees and forest is assessed and, the converse, the possible impact of forests on the atmospheric CO 2 concentration is discussed. At the cellular scale, much is known about the role of CO 2 as a substrate in photosynthesis, but only little about its role as an activator and regulator. At the leaf scale, the response of CO 2 assimilation to CO 2 concentration has been described often and is well represented by biochemically based models, but there is inadequate information to parametrize the models of CO 2 -acclimated leaves. Growth and partitioning to the roots of seedlings and young trees generally increases in response to a doubling in atmospheric CO 2 concentration. Experimental results are very variable, because of the differing length of the experiments, the artificial conditions and the artefactual constraints. At larger scales, direct measurements of responses to increase in atmospheric CO 2 are impractical but models of canopy processes suggest that significant increases in CO 2 assimilation will result from the rise in atmospheric concentration. Inferences from the increase in amplitude of the seasonal oscillation in the global atmospheric CO 2 concentration at different latitudes suggest that forest is having a significant impact on the global atmospheric concentration, but it seems unlikely that expansion of the forest resource could effectively reduce the increase in atmospheric CO 2 .

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