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Climate‐driven changes in chemical weathering and associated phosphorus release since 1850: Implications for the land carbon balance
Author(s) -
Goll Daniel S.,
Moosdorf Nils,
Hartmann Jens,
Brovkin Victor
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2014gl059471
Subject(s) - weathering , carbon cycle , environmental science , carbon fibers , atmospheric sciences , carbon dioxide , climate change , phosphorus , carbon dioxide in earth's atmosphere , greenhouse gas , earth science , environmental chemistry , geology , chemistry , ecosystem , geochemistry , materials science , ecology , oceanography , organic chemistry , composite number , composite material , biology
Chemical weathering and associated nutrient release act as a control on atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentration. To globally quantify the contribution of chemical weathering and associated phosphorus (P) release on the historical trend in terrestrial carbon uptake, we applied a weathering model under climate reconstructions from four Earth System Models. In these simulations, CO 2 consumption and P release increased from 1850 to 2005 by 11 ± 3% and 12 ± 4%, respectively. Thereby the intensification of weathering due to climate change could have contributed to a small extent to the trend in terrestrial carbon uptake since the pre–Industrial Period. Using a back of the envelope calculation, we found a feedback strength of CO 2 consumption and P release of −0.02 ± 0.01Wm −2 K −1 and −0.02 ± 0.01Wm −2 K −1 , respectively. Although being one magnitude smaller than the carbon cycle feedback, the weathering feedbacks are comparable in strength to small second‐order feedbacks such as methane, fire, or ozone.