AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Editors' Highlight

Positive climate feedbacks between global warming and CO₂ concentrations may significantly increase future temperatures

Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide will increase global temperatures, which in turn may generate more carbon dioxide emissions through a range of natural processes such as ocean nutrient cycling and biomass decomposition. However, this feedback has not been included in most predictive models because its magnitude has been difficult to quantify. Scheffer et al. (2006) attempted to solve this problem by developing a method to estimate the magnitude of potential positive climate feedback based on reconstructions of natural changes between 1200 and 1700 A.D., which includes a time period known as the Little Ice Age. Linking this information with estimations of warming expected from anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authors predict that the global temperatures may increase by an additional 15–78 percent in the next century. They note that their estimate may be conservative because it does not include the effects of other greenhouse gases on atmospheric warming.

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