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- ItemClimate change increases riverine carbon outgassing, while export to the ocean remains uncertain(München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2016) Langerwisch, F.; Walz, A.; Rammig, A.; Tietjen, B.; Thonicke, K.; Cramer, W.Any regular interaction of land and river during flooding affects carbon pools within the terrestrial system, riverine carbon and carbon exported from the system. In the Amazon basin carbon fluxes are considerably influenced by annual flooding, during which terrigenous organic material is imported to the river. The Amazon basin therefore represents an excellent example of a tightly coupled terrestrial–riverine system. The processes of generation, conversion and transport of organic carbon in such a coupled terrigenous–riverine system strongly interact and are climate-sensitive, yet their functioning is rarely considered in Earth system models and their response to climate change is still largely unknown. To quantify regional and global carbon budgets and climate change effects on carbon pools and carbon fluxes, it is important to account for the coupling between the land, the river, the ocean and the atmosphere. We developed the RIVerine Carbon Model (RivCM), which is directly coupled to the well-established dynamic vegetation and hydrology model LPJmL, in order to account for this large-scale coupling. We evaluate RivCM with observational data and show that some of the values are reproduced quite well by the model, while we see large deviations for other variables. This is mainly caused by some simplifications we assumed. Our evaluation shows that it is possible to reproduce large-scale carbon transport across a river system but that this involves large uncertainties. Acknowledging these uncertainties, we estimate the potential changes in riverine carbon by applying RivCM for climate forcing from five climate models and three CO2 emission scenarios (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, SRES). We find that climate change causes a doubling of riverine organic carbon in the southern and western basin while reducing it by 20% in the eastern and northern parts. In contrast, the amount of riverine inorganic carbon shows a 2- to 3-fold increase in the entire basin, independent of the SRES scenario. The export of carbon to the atmosphere increases as well, with an average of about 30%. In contrast, changes in future export of organic carbon to the Atlantic Ocean depend on the SRES scenario and are projected to either decrease by about 8.9% (SRES A1B) or increase by about 9.1% (SRES A2). Such changes in the terrigenous–riverine system could have local and regional impacts on the carbon budget of the whole Amazon basin and parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Changes in riverine carbon could lead to a shift in the riverine nutrient supply and pH, while changes in the exported carbon to the ocean lead to changes in the supply of organic material that acts as a food source in the Atlantic. On larger scales the increased outgassing of CO2 could turn the Amazon basin from a sink of carbon to a considerable source. Therefore, we propose that the coupling of terrestrial and riverine carbon budgets should be included in subsequent analysis of the future regional carbon budget.
- ItemTracing the Snowball bifurcation of aquaplanets through time reveals a fundamental shift in critical-state dynamics(Göttingen : Copernicus, 2023) Feulner, Georg; Bukenberger, Mona; Petri, StefanThe instability with respect to global glaciation is a fundamental property of the climate system caused by the positive ice-albedo feedback. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) at which this Snowball bifurcation occurs changes through Earth's history, most notably because of the slowly increasing solar luminosity. Quantifying this critical CO2 concentration is not only interesting from a climate dynamics perspective but also constitutes an important prerequisite for understanding past Snowball Earth episodes, as well as the conditions for habitability on Earth and other planets. Earlier studies are limited to investigations with very simple climate models for Earth's entire history or studies of individual time slices carried out with a variety of more complex models and for different boundary conditions, making comparisons and the identification of secular changes difficult. Here, we use a coupled climate model of intermediate complexity to trace the Snowball bifurcation of an aquaplanet through Earth's history in one consistent model framework. We find that the critical CO2 concentration decreased more or less logarithmically with increasing solar luminosity until about 1 billion years ago but dropped faster in more recent times. Furthermore, there was a fundamental shift in the dynamics of the critical state about 1.2 billion years ago (unrelated to the downturn in critical CO2 values), driven by the interplay of wind-driven sea-ice dynamics and the surface energy balance: for critical states at low solar luminosities, the ice line lies in the Ferrel cell, stabilised by the poleward winds despite moderate meridional temperature gradients under strong greenhouse warming. For critical states at high solar luminosities, on the other hand, the ice line rests at the Hadley cell boundary, stabilised against the equatorward winds by steep meridional temperature gradients resulting from the increased solar energy input at lower latitudes and stronger Ekman transport in the ocean.
- ItemSPITFIRE within the MPI Earth system model: Model development and evaluation(Hoboken, NJ : Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2014) Lasslop, G.; Thonicke, K.; Kloster, S.Quantification of the role of fire within the Earth system requires an adequate representation of fire as a climate-controlled process within an Earth system model. To be able to address questions on the interaction between fire and the Earth system, we implemented the mechanistic fire model SPITFIRE, in JSBACH, the land surface model of the MPI Earth system model. Here, we document the model implementation as well as model modifications. We evaluate our model results by comparing the simulation to the GFED version 3 satellite-based data set. In addition, we assess the sensitivity of the model to the meteorological forcing and to the spatial variability of a number of fire relevant model parameters. A first comparison of model results with burned area observations showed a strong correlation of the residuals with wind speed. Further analysis revealed that the response of the fire spread to wind speed was too strong for the application on global scale. Therefore, we developed an improved parametrization to account for this effect. The evaluation of the improved model shows that the model is able to capture the global gradients and the seasonality of burned area. Some areas of model-data mismatch can be explained by differences in vegetation cover compared to observations. We achieve benchmarking scores comparable to other state-of-the-art fire models. The global total burned area is sensitive to the meteorological forcing. Adjustment of parameters leads to similar model results for both forcing data sets with respect to spatial and seasonal patterns. Key Points The SPITFIRE fire model was evaluated within the JSBACH land surface model A modified wind speed response improved the spatial pattern of burned area Regional gradients in burned area are driven by vegetation and fuel properties.
- ItemCold atoms in space: community workshop summary and proposed road-map(Berlin ; Heidelberg [u.a.] : Springer Open, 2022) Alonso, Iván; Alpigiani, Cristiano; Altschul, Brett; Araújo, Henrique; Arduini, Gianluigi; Arlt, Jan; Badurina, Leonardo; Balaž, Antun; Bandarupally, Satvika; Barish, Barry C.; Barone, Michele; Reguzzoni, Mirko; Richaud, Andrea; Riou, Isabelle; Rothacher, Markus; Roura, Albert; Ruschhaupt, Andreas; Sabulsky, Dylan O.; Safronova, Marianna; Saltas, Ippocratis D.; Bernabeu, Jose; Haehnelt, Martin; Salvi, Leonardo; Sameed, Muhammed; Saurabh, Pandey; Schäffer, Stefan; Schiller, Stephan; Schilling, Manuel; Schkolnik, Vladimir; Schlippert, Dennis; Schmidt, Piet O.; Schnatz, Harald; Hanımeli, Ekim T.; Bertoldi, Andrea; Schneider, Jean; Schneider, Ulrich; Schreck, Florian; Schubert, Christian; Shayeghi, Armin; Sherrill, Nathaniel; Shipsey, Ian; Signorini, Carla; Singh, Rajeev; Hawkins, Leonie; Singh, Yeshpal; Bingham, Robert; Skordis, Constantinos; Smerzi, Augusto; Sopuerta, Carlos F.; Sorrentino, Fiodor; Sphicas, Paraskevas; Stadnik, Yevgeny V.; Stefanescu, Petruta; Tarallo, Marco G.; Hees, Aurélien; Tentindo, Silvia; Tino, Guglielmo M.; Bize, Sébastien; Tinsley, Jonathan N.; Tornatore, Vincenza; Treutlein, Philipp; Trombettoni, Andrea; Tsai, Yu-Dai; Tuckey, Philip; Uchida, Melissa A.; Henderson, Victoria A.; Valenzuela, Tristan; Van Den Bossche, Mathias; Vaskonen, Ville; Blas, Diego; Verma, Gunjan; Vetrano, Flavio; Vogt, Christian; von Klitzing, Wolf; Waller, Pierre; Walser, Reinhold; Herr, Waldemar; Wille, Eric; Williams, Jason; Windpassinger, Patrick; Wittrock, Ulrich; Bongs, Kai; Wolf, Peter; Woltmann, Marian; Wörner, Lisa; Xuereb, André; Yahia, Mohamed; Herrmann, Sven; Yazgan, Efe; Yu, Nan; Zahzam, Nassim; Zambrini Cruzeiro, Emmanuel; Zhan, Mingsheng; Bouyer, Philippe; Zou, Xinhao; Zupan, Jure; Zupanič, Erik; Braitenberg, Carla; Hird, Thomas; Brand, Christian; Braxmaier, Claus; Bresson, Alexandre; Buchmueller, Oliver; Budker, Dmitry; Bugalho, Luís; Burdin, Sergey; Cacciapuoti, Luigi; Callegari, Simone; Calmet, Xavier; Hobson, Richard; Calonico, Davide; Canuel, Benjamin; Caramete, Laurentiu-Ioan; Carraz, Olivier; Cassettari, Donatella; Chakraborty, Pratik; Chattopadhyay, Swapan; Chauhan, Upasna; Chen, Xuzong; Chen, Yu-Ao; Hock, Vincent; Chiofalo, Maria Luisa; Coleman, Jonathon; Corgier, Robin; Cotter, J. P.; Michael Cruise, A.; Cui, Yanou; Davies, Gavin; De Roeck, Albert; Demarteau, Marcel; Derevianko, Andrei; Barsanti, Michele; Di Clemente, Marco; Djordjevic, Goran S.; Donadi, Sandro; Doré, Olivier; Dornan, Peter; Doser, Michael; Drougakis, Giannis; Dunningham, Jacob; Easo, Sajan; Eby, Joshua; Hogan, Jason M.; Elertas, Gedminas; Ellis, John; Evans, David; Examilioti, Pandora; Fadeev, Pavel; Fanì, Mattia; Fassi, Farida; Fattori, Marco; Fedderke, Michael A.; Felea, Daniel; Holst, Bodil; Feng, Chen-Hao; Ferreras, Jorge; Flack, Robert; Flambaum, Victor V.; Forsberg, René; Fromhold, Mark; Gaaloul, Naceur; Garraway, Barry M.; Georgousi, Maria; Geraci, Andrew; Holynski, Michael; Gibble, Kurt; Gibson, Valerie; Gill, Patrick; Giudice, Gian F.; Goldwin, Jon; Gould, Oliver; Grachov, Oleg; Graham, Peter W.; Grasso, Dario; Griffin, Paul F.; Israelsson, Ulf; Guerlin, Christine; Gündoğan, Mustafa; Gupta, Ratnesh K.; Jeglič, Peter; Jetzer, Philippe; Juzeliūnas, Gediminas; Kaltenbaek, Rainer; Kamenik, Jernej F.; Kehagias, Alex; Bass, Steven; Kirova, Teodora; Kiss-Toth, Marton; Koke, Sebastian; Kolkowitz, Shimon; Kornakov, Georgy; Kovachy, Tim; Krutzik, Markus; Kumar, Mukesh; Kumar, Pradeep; Lämmerzahl, Claus; Bassi, Angelo; Landsberg, Greg; Le Poncin-Lafitte, Christophe; Leibrandt, David R.; Lévèque, Thomas; Lewicki, Marek; Li, Rui; Lipniacka, Anna; Lisdat, Christian; Liu, Mia; Lopez-Gonzalez, J. L.; Battelier, Baptiste; Loriani, Sina; Louko, Jorma; Luciano, Giuseppe Gaetano; Lundblad, Nathan; Maddox, Steve; Mahmoud, M. A.; Maleknejad, Azadeh; March-Russell, John; Massonnet, Didier; McCabe, Christopher; Baynham, Charles F. A.; Meister, Matthias; Mežnaršič, Tadej; Micalizio, Salvatore; Migliaccio, Federica; Millington, Peter; Milosevic, Milan; Mitchell, Jeremiah; Morley, Gavin W.; Müller, Jürgen; Murphy, Eamonn; Beaufils, Quentin; Müstecaplıoğlu, Özgür E.; O’Shea, Val; Oi, Daniel K. L.; Olson, Judith; Pal, Debapriya; Papazoglou, Dimitris G.; Pasatembou, Elizabeth; Paternostro, Mauro; Pawlowski, Krzysztof; Pelucchi, Emanuele; Belić, Aleksandar; Pereira dos Santos, Franck; Peters, Achim; Pikovski, Igor; Pilaftsis, Apostolos; Pinto, Alexandra; Prevedelli, Marco; Puthiya-Veettil, Vishnupriya; Quenby, John; Rafelski, Johann; Rasel, Ernst M.; Bergé, Joel; Ravensbergen, CornelisWe summarise the discussions at a virtual Community Workshop on Cold Atoms in Space concerning the status of cold atom technologies, the prospective scientific and societal opportunities offered by their deployment in space, and the developments needed before cold atoms could be operated in space. The cold atom technologies discussed include atomic clocks, quantum gravimeters and accelerometers, and atom interferometers. Prospective applications include metrology, geodesy and measurement of terrestrial mass change due to, e.g., climate change, and fundamental science experiments such as tests of the equivalence principle, searches for dark matter, measurements of gravitational waves and tests of quantum mechanics. We review the current status of cold atom technologies and outline the requirements for their space qualification, including the development paths and the corresponding technical milestones, and identifying possible pathfinder missions to pave the way for missions to exploit the full potential of cold atoms in space. Finally, we present a first draft of a possible road-map for achieving these goals, that we propose for discussion by the interested cold atom, Earth Observation, fundamental physics and other prospective scientific user communities, together with the European Space Agency (ESA) and national space and research funding agencies.
- ItemComparing impacts of climate change on streamflow in four large African river basins(Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2014) Aich, V.; Liersch, S.; Vetter, T.; Huang, S.; Tecklenburg, J.; Hoffmann, P.; Koch, H.; Fournet, S.; Krysanova, V.; Müller, E.N.; Hattermann, F.F.This study aims to compare impacts of climate change on streamflow in four large representative African river basins: the Niger, the Upper Blue Nile, the Oubangui and the Limpopo. We set up the eco-hydrological model SWIM (Soil and Water Integrated Model) for all four basins individually. The validation of the models for four basins shows results from adequate to very good, depending on the quality and availability of input and calibration data.
For the climate impact assessment, we drive the model with outputs of five bias corrected Earth system models of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) for the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and 8.5. This climate input is put into the context of climate trends of the whole African continent and compared to a CMIP5 ensemble of 19 models in order to test their representativeness. Subsequently, we compare the trends in mean discharges, seasonality and hydrological extremes in the 21st century. The uncertainty of results for all basins is high. Still, climate change impact is clearly visible for mean discharges but also for extremes in high and low flows. The uncertainty of the projections is the lowest in the Upper Blue Nile, where an increase in streamflow is most likely. In the Niger and the Limpopo basins, the magnitude of trends in both directions is high and has a wide range of uncertainty. In the Oubangui, impacts are the least significant. Our results confirm partly the findings of previous continental impact analyses for Africa. However, contradictory to these studies we find a tendency for increased streamflows in three of the four basins (not for the Oubangui). Guided by these results, we argue for attention to the possible risks of increasing high flows in the face of the dominant water scarcity in Africa. In conclusion, the study shows that impact intercomparisons have added value to the adaptation discussion and may be used for setting up adaptation plans in the context of a holistic approach. - ItemAre we using the right fuel to drive hydrological models? A climate impact study in the Upper Blue Nile(Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2018) Liersch, S.; Tecklenburg, J.; Rust, H.; Dobler, A.; Fischer, M.; Kruschke, T.; Koch, H.; Hattermann, F.F.Climate simulations are the fuel to drive hydrological models that are used to assess the impacts of climate change and variability on hydrological parameters, such as river discharges, soil moisture, and evapotranspiration. Unlike with cars, where we know which fuel the engine requires, we never know in advance what unexpected side effects might be caused by the fuel we feed our models with. Sometimes we increase the fuel's octane number (bias correction) to achieve better performance and find out that the model behaves differently but not always as was expected or desired. This study investigates the impacts of projected climate change on the hydrology of the Upper Blue Nile catchment using two model ensembles consisting of five global CMIP5 Earth system models and 10 regional climate models (CORDEX Africa). WATCH forcing data were used to calibrate an eco-hydrological model and to bias-correct both model ensembles using slightly differing approaches. On the one hand it was found that the bias correction methods considerably improved the performance of average rainfall characteristics in the reference period (1970-1999) in most of the cases. This also holds true for non-extreme discharge conditions between Q20 and Q80. On the other hand, bias-corrected simulations tend to overemphasize magnitudes of projected change signals and extremes. A general weakness of both uncorrected and bias-corrected simulations is the rather poor representation of high and low flows and their extremes, which were often deteriorated by bias correction. This inaccuracy is a crucial deficiency for regional impact studies dealing with water management issues and it is therefore important to analyse model performance and characteristics and the effect of bias correction, and eventually to exclude some climate models from the ensemble. However, the multi-model means of all ensembles project increasing average annual discharges in the Upper Blue Nile catchment and a shift in seasonal patterns, with decreasing discharges in June and July and increasing discharges from August to November.
- ItemResolving ecological feedbacks on the ocean carbon sink in Earth system models(Göttingen : Copernicus Publ., 2021) Armstrong McKay, David I.; Cornell, Sarah E.; Richardson, Katherine; Rockström, JohanThe Earth's oceans are one of the largest sinks in the Earth system for anthropogenic CO2 emissions, acting as a negative feedback on climate change. Earth system models project that climate change will lead to a weakening ocean carbon uptake rate as warm water holds less dissolved CO2 and as biological productivity declines. However, most Earth system models do not incorporate the impact of warming on bacterial remineralisation and rely on simplified representations of plankton ecology that do not resolve the potential impact of climate change on ecosystem structure or elemental stoichiometry. Here, we use a recently developed extension of the cGEnIE (carbon-centric Grid Enabled Integrated Earth system model), ecoGEnIE, featuring a trait-based scheme for plankton ecology (ECOGEM), and also incorporate cGEnIE's temperature-dependent remineralisation (TDR) scheme. This enables evaluation of the impact of both ecological dynamics and temperature-dependent remineralisation on particulate organic carbon (POC) export in response to climate change. We find that including TDR increases cumulative POC export relative to default runs due to increased nutrient recycling (+∼1.3 %), whereas ECOGEM decreases cumulative POC export by enabling a shift to smaller plankton classes (−∼0.9 %). However, interactions with carbonate chemistry cause opposite sign responses for the carbon sink in both cases: TDR leads to a smaller sink relative to default runs (−∼1.0 %), whereas ECOGEM leads to a larger sink (+∼0.2 %). Combining TDR and ECOGEM results in a net strengthening of POC export (+∼0.1 %) and a net reduction in carbon sink (−∼0.7 %) relative to default. These results illustrate the degree to which ecological dynamics and biodiversity modulate the strength of the biological pump, and demonstrate that Earth system models need to incorporate ecological complexity in order to resolve non-linear climate–biosphere feedbacks.
- ItemEarth system modeling with endogenous and dynamic human societies: the copan:CORE open World–Earth modeling framework(Göttingen : Copernicus Publ., 2020) Donges, Jonathan F.; Heitzig, Jobst; Barfuss, Wolfram; Wiedermann, Marc; Kassel, Johannes A.; Kittel, Tim; Kolb, Jakob J.; Kolster, Till; Müller-Hansen, Finn; Otto, Ilona M.; Zimmerer, Kilian B.; Lucht, WolfgangAnalysis of Earth system dynamics in the Anthropocene requires explicitly taking into account the increasing magnitude of processes operating in human societies, their cultures, economies and technosphere and their growing feedback entanglement with those in the physical, chemical and biological systems of the planet. However, current state-of-the-art Earth system models do not represent dynamic human societies and their feedback interactions with the biogeophysical Earth system and macroeconomic integrated assessment models typically do so only with limited scope. This paper (i) proposes design principles for constructing world-Earth models (WEMs) for Earth system analysis of the Anthropocene, i.e., models of social (world)-ecological (Earth) coevolution on up to planetary scales, and (ii) presents the copan:CORE open simulation modeling framework for developing, composing and analyzing such WEMs based on the proposed principles. The framework provides a modular structure to flexibly construct and study WEMs. These can contain biophysical (e.g., carbon cycle dynamics), socio-metabolic or economic (e.g., economic growth or energy system changes), and sociocultural processes (e.g., voting on climate policies or changing social norms) and their feedback interactions, and they are based on elementary entity types, e.g., grid cells and social systems. Thereby, copan:CORE enables the epistemic flexibility needed for contributions towards Earth system analysis of the Anthropocene given the large diversity of competing theories and methodologies used for describing socio-metabolic or economic and sociocultural processes in the Earth system by various fields and schools of thought. To illustrate the capabilities of the framework, we present an exemplary and highly stylized WEM implemented in copan:CORE that illustrates how endogenizing sociocultural processes and feedbacks such as voting on climate policies based on socially learned environmental awareness could fundamentally change macroscopic model outcomes. © Author(s) 2020.
- ItemOrganic carbon burial is paced by a ∼173-ka obliquity cycle in the middle to high latitudes(Washington, DC [u.a.] : Assoc., 2021) Huang, He; Gao, Yuan; Ma, Chao; Jones, Matthew M.; Zeeden, Christian; Ibarra, Daniel E.; Wu, Huaichun; Wang, ChengshanEarth’s climate system is complex and inherently nonlinear, which can induce some extraneous cycles in paleoclimatic proxies at orbital time scales. The paleoenvironmental consequences of these extraneous cycles are debated owing to their complex origin. Here, we compile high-resolution datasets of total organic carbon (TOC) and stable carbon isotope (δ13Corg) datasets to investigate organic carbon burial processes in middle to high latitudes. Our results document a robust cyclicity of ~173 thousand years (ka) in both TOC and δ13Corg. The ~173-ka obliquity–related forcing signal was amplified by internal climate feedbacks of the carbon cycle under different geographic and climate conditions, which control a series of sensitive climatic processes. In addition, our new and compiled records from multiple proxies confirm the presence of the obliquity amplitude modulation (AM) cycle during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic and indicate the usefulness of the ~173-ka cycle as geochronometer and for paleoclimatic interpretation.