Sensitivity of the global carbonate weathering carbon-sink flux to climate and land-use changes.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31848344.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-13772-4 and PMC identifier 6917807.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The response of carbonate weathering carbon-sink flux (CCSF) to its environmental drivers is still not well understood on the global scale. This hinders understanding of the terrestrial carbon cycle. Here, we show that there is likely to be a widespread and consistent increase in the global CCSF (ranging from + 9.8% (RCP4.5) to + 17.1% (RCP8.5)) over the period 1950-2100. In the coming years the increasing temperature might be expected to have a negative impact on carbonate weathering. However, the increasing rainfall and anticipated land-use changes will counteract this, leading to a greater CCSF. This finding has been obtained by using long-term historical (1950-2005) and modeled future (2006-2100) data for two scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) for climate and land-use change in our CCSF equilibrium model. This study stresses the potential role that carbonate weathering may play in the evolution of the global carbon cycle over this century.