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What can we learn about the Earth’s response to anthropogenic forcing from geological records of natural perturbations to the carbon cycle?
Posted on August 12th, 2009Categorized as Biodiversity, Earth System Tagged as anthropogenic factors, carbon cycle, geological record
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There are many lines of evidence in the geological record that point to massive major natural rapid perturbations to the cycles of carbon and other elements. These represent our only direct evidence of the long term repsonse of the Earth system to climate forcing. It is therefore of great importance to understand how these events compare and contrast in rate and scale with our own carbon cycle modifications to better understand the feedbacks, long term consequences and recovery of the Earth system. For instance it is only now that literature is beggining to appear linking de-oxygentation of the oceans to modern climate change. However, many of the geological events are associated with evidence of widespread ocean anoxia and their study can give us some insight into the factors controlling the distribution in time and space of these low oxygen waters.
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How do we quantify the coupling of the carbon, water and energy cycles at the surface, in the boundary layer and in atmospheric vertical transports?
Posted on September 4th, 2009Categorized as Earth System Tagged as carbon cycle, energy cycle, photosynthesis, surface fluxes, vertical transports, water cycle
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Photosynthesis is coupled to transpiration but not to surface evaporation off wet soils and wet canopies. The BL diurnal cycle and daily equilibrium involves all the surface fluxes and the radiation balance. The vertical transports are coupled especially through convective clouds, and cloud forcing feeds back on the SW and LW surface energy budget. We need to evaluate and quantify this coupled system in earth system models.
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What will be the true magnitude of cumulative effects of global change?
Posted on July 20th, 2009Categorized as Biodiversity, Earth System, Human Health, Interdisciplinary, Social-Ecological Systems Tagged as carbon cycle, CO2, feedbacks, global change, non-linear, sea level
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To date many global change questions have focused on a component (e.g. the C cycle or sea level rise). The true outcomes of global change will be dictated by cumulative impacts, interactions and feedbacks. If they’re not addressed we may get some nasty non-linear surprises.
