Climate Prediction

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• Carbon-cycle feedbacks increase the likelihood of a warmer future

  • H. Damon Matthews, David W. Keith,
  • Original article citation: Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, (2007).
  • Categories: Climate Prediction, Policy, and Extreme Events
  • Recommended by: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:21PM GMT
  • Reasons for recommending:
    In this paper published last month in GRL, Matthews and Keith use coupled climate-carbon models to assess the likely impacts of carbon-cycle feedbacks on future warming scenarios. By incorporating carbon-cycle feedbacks into the models, they show that feedback mechanisms can lead to dramatic increases in extreme warming probabilities. For example, for CO2 stabilization at 550 ppm, the probability of exceeding 2°C warming by end of century increases by a factor of between 1.7 and 3 when feedbacks are included. The authors suggest that the effects of positive carbon-cycle feedbacks on the likelihood of extreme future warming should be accounted for in climate policy-related decision making