| 1. |
- Limpens, J., et al.
(författare)
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Peatlands and the carbon cycle : from local processes to global implications – a synthesis
- 2008
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Ingår i: Biogeosciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1726-4170 .- 1726-4189. ; 5:5, s. 1475-1491
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Peatlands cover only 3% of the Earth's land surface but boreal and subarctic peatlands store about 15-30% of the world's soil carbon ( C) as peat. Despite their potential for large positive feedbacks to the climate system through sequestration and emission of greenhouse gases, peatlands are not explicitly included in global climate models and therefore in predictions of future climate change. In April 2007 a symposium was held in Wageningen, the Netherlands, to advance our understanding of peatland C cycling. This paper synthesizes the main findings of the symposium, focusing on (i) small-scale processes, (ii) C fluxes at the landscape scale, and (iii) peatlands in the context of climate change. The main drivers controlling most are related to some aspects of hydrology. Despite high spatial and annual variability in Net Ecosystem Exchange ( NEE), the differences in cumulative annual NEE are more a function of broad scale geographic location and physical setting than internal factors, suggesting the existence of strong feedbacks. In contrast, trace gas emissions seem mainly controlled by local factors. Key uncertainties remain concerning the existence of perturbation thresholds, the relative strengths of the CO2 and CH4 feedback, the links among peatland surface climate, hydrology, ecosystem structure and function, and trace gas biogeochemistry as well as the similarity of process rates across peatland types and climatic zones. Progress on these research areas can only be realized by stronger co-operation between disciplines that address different spatial and temporal scales.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Saunois, M., et al.
(författare)
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The global methane budget 2000–2012
- 2016
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Ingår i: Earth System Science Data. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1866-3508 .- 1866-3516. ; 8:2, s. 697-751
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The global methane (CH4) budget is becoming an increasingly important component for managing realistic pathways to mitigate climate change. This relevance, due to a shorter atmospheric lifetime and a stronger warming potential than carbon dioxide, is challenged by the still unexplained changes of atmospheric CH4 over the past decade. Emissions and concentrations of CH4 are continuing to increase, making CH4 the second most important human-induced greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Two major difficulties in reducing uncertainties come from the large variety of diffusive CH4 sources that overlap geographically, and from the destruction of CH4 by the very short-lived hydroxyl radical (OH). To address these difficulties, we have established a consortium of multi-disciplinary scientists under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project to synthesize and stimulate research on the methane cycle, and producing regular (∼ biennial) updates of the global methane budget. This consortium includes atmospheric physicists and chemists, biogeochemists of surface and marine emissions, and socio-economists who study anthropogenic emissions. Following Kirschke et al. (2013), we propose here the first version of a living review paper that integrates results of top-down studies (exploiting atmospheric observations within an atmospheric inverse-modelling framework) and bottom-up models, inventories and data-driven approaches (including process-based models for estimating land surface emissions and atmospheric chemistry, and inventories for anthropogenic emissions, data-driven extrapolations). For the 2003–2012 decade, global methane emissions are estimated by top-down inversions at 558 Tg CH4 yr−1, range 540–568. About 60 % of global emissions are anthropogenic (range 50–65 %). Since 2010, the bottom-up global emission inventories have been closer to methane emissions in the most carbon-intensive Representative Concentrations Pathway (RCP8.5) and higher than all other RCP scenarios. Bottom-up approaches suggest larger global emissions (736 Tg CH4 yr−1, range 596–884) mostly because of larger natural emissions from individual sources such as inland waters, natural wetlands and geological sources. Considering the atmospheric constraints on the top-down budget, it is likely that some of the individual emissions reported by the bottom-up approaches are overestimated, leading to too large global emissions. Latitudinal data from top-down emissions indicate a predominance of tropical emissions (∼ 64 % of the global budget, < 30° N) as compared to mid (∼ 32 %, 30–60° N) and high northern latitudes (∼ 4 %, 60–90° N). Top-down inversions consistently infer lower emissions in China (∼ 58 Tg CH4 yr−1, range 51–72, −14 %) and higher emissions in Africa (86 Tg CH4 yr−1, range 73–108, +19 %) than bottom-up values used as prior estimates. Overall, uncertainties for anthropogenic emissions appear smaller than those from natural sources, and the uncertainties on source categories appear larger for top-down inversions than for bottom-up inventories and models. The most important source of uncertainty on the methane budget is attributable to emissions from wetland and other inland waters. We show that the wetland extent could contribute 30–40 % on the estimated range for wetland emissions. Other priorities for improving the methane budget include the following: (i) the development of process-based models for inland-water emissions, (ii) the intensification of methane observations at local scale (flux measurements) to constrain bottom-up land surface models, and at regional scale (surface networks and satellites) to constrain top-down inversions, (iii) improvements in the estimation of atmospheric loss by OH, and (iv) improvements of the transport models integrated in top-down inversions. The data presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (http://doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/GLOBAL_METHANE_BUDGET_2016_V1.1) and the Global Carbon Project.
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| 4. |
- Saunois, M., et al.
(författare)
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Variability and quasi-decadal changes in the methane budget over the period 2000–2012
- 2017
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 17:18, s. 11135-11161
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Following the recent Global Carbon Project (GCP) synthesis of the decadal methane (CH4) budget over 2000–2012 (Saunois et al., 2016), we analyse here the same dataset with a focus on quasi-decadal and inter-annual variability in CH4 emissions. The GCP dataset integrates results from top-down studies (exploiting atmospheric observations within an atmospheric inverse-modelling framework) and bottom-up models (including process-based models for estimating land surface emissions and atmospheric chemistry), inventories of anthropogenic emissions, and data-driven approaches. The annual global methane emissions from top-down studies, which by construction match the observed methane growth rate within their uncertainties, all show an increase in total methane emissions over the period 2000–2012, but this increase is not linear over the 13 years. Despite differences between individual studies, the mean emission anomaly of the top-down ensemble shows no significant trend in total methane emissions over the period 2000–2006, during the plateau of atmospheric methane mole fractions, and also over the period 2008–2012, during the renewed atmospheric methane increase. However, the top-down ensemble mean produces an emission shift between 2006 and 2008, leading to 22 [16–32] Tg CH4 yr−1 higher methane emissions over the period 2008–2012 compared to 2002–2006. This emission increase mostly originated from the tropics, with a smaller contribution from mid-latitudes and no significant change from boreal regions. The regional contributions remain uncertain in top-down studies. Tropical South America and South and East Asia seem to contribute the most to the emission increase in the tropics. However, these two regions have only limited atmospheric measurements and remain therefore poorly constrained. The sectorial partitioning of this emission increase between the periods 2002–2006 and 2008–2012 differs from one atmospheric inversion study to another. However, all top-down studies suggest smaller changes in fossil fuel emissions (from oil, gas, and coal industries) compared to the mean of the bottom-up inventories included in this study. This difference is partly driven by a smaller emission change in China from the top-down studies compared to the estimate in the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGARv4.2) inventory, which should be revised to smaller values in a near future. We apply isotopic signatures to the emission changes estimated for individual studies based on five emission sectors and find that for six individual top-down studies (out of eight) the average isotopic signature of the emission changes is not consistent with the observed change in atmospheric 13CH4. However, the partitioning in emission change derived from the ensemble mean is consistent with this isotopic constraint. At the global scale, the top-down ensemble mean suggests that the dominant contribution to the resumed atmospheric CH4 growth after 2006 comes from microbial sources (more from agriculture and waste sectors than from natural wetlands), with an uncertain but smaller contribution from fossil CH4 emissions. In addition, a decrease in biomass burning emissions (in agreement with the biomass burning emission databases) makes the balance of sources consistent with atmospheric 13CH4 observations. In most of the top-down studies included here, OH concentrations are considered constant over the years (seasonal variations but without any inter-annual variability). As a result, the methane loss (in particular through OH oxidation) varies mainly through the change in methane concentrations and not its oxidants. For these reasons, changes in the methane loss could not be properly investigated in this study, although it may play a significant role in the recent atmospheric methane changes as briefly discussed at the end of the paper.
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| 5. |
- Schuur, E. A. G., et al.
(författare)
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Expert assessment of vulnerability of permafrost carbon to climate change
- 2013
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Ingår i: Climatic Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0165-0009 .- 1573-1480. ; 119:2, s. 359-374
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Approximately 1700 Pg of soil carbon (C) are stored in the northern circumpolar permafrost zone, more than twice as much C than in the atmosphere. The overall amount, rate, and form of C released to the atmosphere in a warmer world will influence the strength of the permafrost C feedback to climate change. We used a survey to quantify variability in the perception of the vulnerability of permafrost C to climate change. Experts were asked to provide quantitative estimates of permafrost change in response to four scenarios of warming. For the highest warming scenario (RCP 8.5), experts hypothesized that C release from permafrost zone soils could be 19-45 Pg C by 2040, 162-288 Pg C by 2100, and 381-616 Pg C by 2300 in CO2 equivalent using 100-year CH4 global warming potential (GWP). These values become 50 % larger using 20-year CH4 GWP, with a third to a half of expected climate forcing coming from CH4 even though CH4 was only 2.3 % of the expected C release. Experts projected that two-thirds of this release could be avoided under the lowest warming scenario (RCP 2.6). These results highlight the potential risk from permafrost thaw and serve to frame a hypothesis about the magnitude of this feedback to climate change. However, the level of emissions proposed here are unlikely to overshadow the impact of fossil fuel burning, which will continue to be the main source of C emissions and climate forcing.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Sitch, S., et al.
(författare)
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Recent trends and drivers of regional sources and sinks of carbon dioxide
- 2015
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Ingår i: Biogeosciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1726-4189. ; 12:3, s. 653-679
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The land and ocean absorb on average just over half of the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year. These CO2 "sinks" are modulated by climate change and variability. Here we use a suite of nine dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) and four ocean biogeochemical general circulation models (OBGCMs) to estimate trends driven by global and regional climate and atmospheric CO2 in land and oceanic CO2 exchanges with the atmosphere over the period 1990-2009, to attribute these trends to underlying processes in the models, and to quantify the uncertainty and level of inter-model agreement. The models were forced with reconstructed climate fields and observed global atmospheric CO2; land use and land cover changes are not included for the DGVMs. Over the period 1990-2009, the DGVMs simulate a mean global land carbon sink of -2.4 +/- 0.7 PgC yr(-1) with a small significant trend of -0.06 +/- 0.03 PgC yr(-2) (increasing sink). Over the more limited period 1990-2004, the ocean models simulate a mean ocean sink of -2.2 +/- 0.2 PgC yr(-1) with a trend in the net C uptake that is indistinguishable from zero (-0.01 +/- 0.02 PgC yr(-2)). The two ocean models that extended the simulations until 2009 suggest a slightly stronger, but still small, trend of 0.02 +/- 0.01 PgC yr(-2). Trends from land and ocean models compare favourably to the land greenness trends from remote sensing, atmospheric inversion results, and the residual land sink required to close the global carbon budget. Trends in the land sink are driven by increasing net primary production (NPP), whose statistically significant trend of 0.22 +/- 0.08 PgC yr(-2) exceeds a significant trend in heterotrophic respiration of 0.16 +/- 0.05 PgC yr(-2) - primarily as a consequence of widespread CO2 fertilisation of plant production. Most of the land-based trend in simulated net carbon uptake originates from natural ecosystems in the tropics (0.04 +/- 0.01 PgC yr(-2)), with almost no trend over the northern land region, where recent warming and reduced rainfall offsets the positive impact of elevated atmospheric CO2 and changes in growing season length on carbon storage. The small uptake trend in the ocean models emerges because climate variability and change, and in particular increasing sea surface temperatures, tend to counteract the trend in ocean uptake driven by the increase in atmospheric CO2. Large uncertainty remains in the magnitude and sign of modelled carbon trends in several regions, as well as regarding the influence of land use and land cover changes on regional trends.
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| 8. |
- Sitch, S., et al.
(författare)
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Trends and drivers of regional sources and sinks of carbon dioxide over the past two decades
- 2013
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Ingår i: Biogeosciences Discussions. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1810-6277. ; 10, s. 20113-20177
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract. The land and ocean absorb on average over half of the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year. These CO2 "sinks" are modulated by climate change and variability. Here we use a suite of nine Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) and four Ocean Biogeochemical General Circulation Models (OBGCMs) to quantify the global and regional climate and atmospheric CO2 – driven trends in land and oceanic CO2 exchanges with the atmosphere over the period 1990–2009, attribute these trends to underlying processes, and quantify the uncertainty and level of model agreement. The models were forced with reconstructed climate fields and observed global atmospheric CO2; Land Use and Land Cover Changes are not included for the DGVMs. Over the period 1990–2009, the DGVMs simulate a mean global land carbon sink of −2.4 ± 0.7 Pg C yr−1 with a small significant trend of −0.06 ± 0.03 Pg C yr−2 (increasing sink). Over the more limited period 1990–2004, the ocean models simulate a mean ocean sink of –2.2 ± 0.2 Pg C yr–1 with a trend in the net C uptake that is indistinguishable from zero (−0.01 ± 0.02 Pg C yr−2). The two ocean models that extended the simulations until 2009 suggest a slightly stronger, but still small trend of −0.02 ± 0.01 Pg C yr−2. Trends from land and ocean models compare favourably to the land greenness trends from remote sensing, atmospheric inversion results, and the residual land sink required to close the global carbon budget. Trends in the land sink are driven by increasing net primary production (NPP) whose statistically significant trend of 0.22 ± 0.08 Pg C yr−2 exceeds a significant trend in heterotrophic respiration of 0.16 ± 0.05 Pg C yr−2 – primarily as a consequence of wide-spread CO2 fertilisation of plant production. Most of the land-based trend in simulated net carbon uptake originates from natural ecosystems in the tropics (−0.04 ± 0.01 Pg C yr−2), with almost no trend over the northern land region, where recent warming and reduced rainfall offsets the positive impact of elevated atmospheric CO2 on carbon storage. The small uptake trend in the ocean models emerges because climate variability and change, and in particular increasing sea surface temperatures, tend to counteract the trend in ocean uptake driven by the increase in atmospheric CO2. Large uncertainty remains in the magnitude and sign of modelled carbon trends in several regions, and on the influence of land use and land cover changes on regional trends.
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