What do recent advances in quantifying climate and carbon cycle uncertainties mean for climate policy?

Global policy targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions are being negotiated. The amount of emitted carbon dioxide remaining in the atmosphere is controlled by carbon cycle processes in the ocean and on land. These processes are themselves affected by climate. The resulting ‘climate–carbon cycle feedback’ has recently been quantified, but the policy implications have not. Using a scheme to emulate the range of state-of-the-art model results for climate feedback strength, including the modelled range of climate sensitivity and other key uncertainties, we analyse recent global targets. The G8 target of a 50% cut in emissions by 2050 leaves CO2 concentrations rising rapidly, approaching 1000 ppm by 2300. The Stern Review’s proposed 25% cut in emissions by 2050, continuing to an 80% cut, does in fact approach stabilization of CO2 concentration on a policy-relevant (century) timescale, with most models projecting concentrations between 500 and 600 ppm by 2100. However concentrations continue to rise gradually. Long-term stabilization at 550 ppm CO2 requires cuts in emissions of 81 to 90% by 2300, and more beyond as a portion of the CO2 emitted persists for centuries to millennia. Reductions of other greenhouse gases cannot compensate for the long-term effects of emitting CO2

The comparative role of key environmental factors in determining savanna productivity and carbon fluxes: a review, with special reference to northern Australia

Terrestrial ecosystems are highly responsive to their local environments and, as such, the rate of carbon uptake both in shorter and longer timescales and different spatial scales depends on local environmental drivers. For savannas, the key environmental drivers controlling vegetation productivity are water and nutrient availability, vapour pressure deficit (VPD), solar radiation and fire. Changes in these environmental factors can modify the carbon balance of these ecosystems. Therefore, understanding the environmental drivers responsible for the patterns (temporal and spatial) and processes (photosynthesis and respiration) has become a central goal in terrestrial carbon cycle studies. Here we have reviewed the various environmental controls on the spatial and temporal patterns on savanna carbon fluxes in northern Australia. Such studies are critical in predicting the impacts of future climate change on savanna productivity and carbon storage

Three decades of global methane sources and sinks

Methane is an important greenhouse gas, responsible for about 20 of the warming induced by long-lived greenhouse gases since pre-industrial times. By reacting with hydroxyl radicals, methane reduces the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere and generates ozone in the troposphere. Although most sources and sinks of methane have been identified, their relative contributions to atmospheric methane levels are highly uncertain. As such, the factors responsible for the observed stabilization of atmospheric methane levels in the early 2000s, and the renewed rise after 2006, remain unclear. Here, we construct decadal budgets for methane sources and sinks between 1980 and 2010, using a combination of atmospheric measurements and results from chemical transport models, ecosystem models, climate chemistry models and inventories of anthropogenic emissions. The resultant budgets suggest that data-driven approaches and ecosystem models overestimate total natural emissions. We build three contrasting emission scenarios � which differ in fossil fuel and microbial emissions � to explain the decadal variability in atmospheric methane levels detected, here and in previous studies, since 1985. Although uncertainties in emission trends do not allow definitive conclusions to be drawn, we show that the observed stabilization of methane levels between 1999 and 2006 can potentially be explained by decreasing-to-stable fossil fuel emissions, combined with stable-to-increasing microbial emissions. We show that a rise in natural wetland emissions and fossil fuel emissions probably accounts for the renewed increase in global methane levels after 2006, although the relative contribution of these two sources remains uncertain