TheatmosphericCO2airborne.PDFVIP

The atmospheric CO2 airborne fraction and carbon cycle feedbacks Chris Jones, Peter Cox1, Chris Huntingford2 1 Exeter University, UK 2 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK 1. Introduction The five decades of the Mauna Loa record of atmospheric CO2 have been instrumental in much increased understanding of the functioning of the global carbon cycle. One important result is the remarkable fact that the airborne fraction of CO2 (i.e. the fraction of anthropogenic emissions which remain in the atmosphere) has remained almost constant on multi-year timescales throughout the last 50 years. It is now widely predicted by complex climate-carbon cycle models that future climate change will significantly affect the ability of the natural carbon cycle (both terrestrial and marine) to take up anthropogenic carbon (Cox et al., 2000; Friedlingstein et al., 2006). However, the constancy of the observed airborne fraction has been seen as evidence that climate is not yet affecting these processes – in other words we are not yet seeing a “climate-carbon cycle feedback”. Is this a correct inference? Here we attempt to show that although climate feedbacks will certainly alter the airborne fraction from what it would have been in the absence of climate change, the two concepts are not the same. A constant airborne fraction does not imply an absence of climate feedback on carbon uptake and likewise A change in the airborne fraction does not necessarily imply a climate feedback on the carbon cycle We show that the constant airborne fraction is not a fundamental property of the carbon cycle, but results from the particular time history of anthropogenic emissions. Understanding how the airborne fraction has behaved in response to the emissions history will allow better projections of it in a future, changing, climate. 3. AF behaviour The airborne fraction (AF) has remained remarkably constant over the last five decades since observations of CO2 began at Mauna Loa 50 years ago. Jo