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Anders Lindroth

Professor

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CO2-induced terrestrial climate feedback mechanism: From carbon sink to aerosol source and back

Author

  • Markku Kulmala
  • Tuomo Nieminen
  • Anna Nikandrova
  • Katrianne Lehtipalo
  • Hanna E. Manninen
  • Maija K. Kajos
  • Pasi Kolari
  • Antti Lauri
  • Tuukka Petaja
  • Radovan Krejci
  • Hans-Christen Hansson
  • Erik Swietlicki
  • Anders Lindroth
  • Torben Christensen
  • Almut Arneth
  • Pertti Hari
  • Jaana Back
  • Timo Vesala
  • Veli-Matti Kerminen

Summary, in English

Feedbacks mechanisms are essential components of our climate system, as they either increase or decrease changes in climate-related quantities in the presence of external forcings. In this work, we provide the first quantitative estimate regarding the terrestrial climate feedback loop connecting the increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, changes in gross primary production (GPP) associated with the carbon uptake, organic aerosol formation in the atmosphere, and transfer of both diffuse and global radiation. Our approach was to combine process-level understanding with comprehensive, long-term field measurement data set collected from a boreal forest site in southern Finland. Our best estimate of the gain in GPP resulting from the feedback is 1.3 (range 1.02-1.5), which is larger than the gains of the few atmospheric chemistry-climate feedbacks estimated using large-scale models. Our analysis demonstrates the power of using comprehensive field measurements in investigating the complicated couplings between the biosphere and atmosphere on one hand, and the need for complementary approaches relying on the combination of field data, satellite observations model simulations on the other hand.

Department/s

  • Nuclear physics
  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration
  • MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

122-131

Publication/Series

Boreal Environment Research: An International Interdisciplinary Journal

Volume

19

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Finnish Zoological and Botanical Publishing Board

Topic

  • Physical Geography
  • Subatomic Physics

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1239-6095