High sensitivity of the continental-weathering carbon dioxide sink to future climate change
High sensitivity of the continental-weathering carbon dioxide sink to future climate change
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DOI：
10.1038/nclimate1419
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发表时间：
2012-05-01
影响因子：
30.7
通讯作者：
Roelandt, C.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Beaulieu, E.;Godderis, Y.;Roelandt, C.
根据未来人为排放情景，到21世纪末，大气CO2浓度可能翻一番(1)。据预测，在最坏的情况下，这种增长将导致全球变暖6摄氏度以上(1)。全球气温升高将通过降雨模式和大陆植被覆盖的重新分布促进水文循环的变化（1,2）。所有这些变化都会影响大陆岩石的化学风化作用。长期以来被认为是一个世纪时间尺度上的惰性二氧化碳消耗通量，最近的研究表明，它对持续的气候和土地利用变化具有潜在的高度敏感性（3,4）。在这里，我们表明，在最重要的北极流域之一：麦肯齐河流域，大气二氧化碳翻倍时，与风化过程相关的二氧化碳消耗通量增加了50%以上。这一结果是通过一个基于过程的大陆表面化学风化模式得到的，该模式是由描述大气环流和植被动态的模式所强迫的（5,6）。我们的研究强调了风化在未来几个世纪的全球碳循环演变中可能发挥的潜在作用。
According to future anthropogenic emission scenarios, the atmospheric CO2 concentration may double before the end of the twenty-first century(1). This increase is predicted to result in a global warming of more than 6 degrees C in the worst case(1). The global temperature increase will promote changes in the hydrologic cycle through redistributions of rainfall patterns and continental vegetation cover(1,2). All of these changes will impact the chemical weathering of continental rocks. Long considered an inert CO2 consumption flux at the century timescale, recent works have demonstrated its potential high sensitivity to the ongoing climate and land-use changes(3,4). Here we show that the CO2 consumption flux related to weathering processes increases by more than 50% for an atmospheric CO2 doubling for one of the most important Arctic watersheds: the Mackenzie River Basin. This result has been obtained using a process-based model of the chemical weathering of continental surfaces forced by models describing the atmospheric general circulation and the dynamic of the vegetation(5,6) under increased, atmospheric CO2. Our study stresses the potential role that weathering may play in the evolution of the global carbon cycle over the next centuries.