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Long-term response of oceans to CO2 removal from the atmosphere

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 1107–1113 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere has been proposed as a measure for mitigating global warming and ocean acidification. To assess the extent to which CDR might eliminate the long-term consequences of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the marine environment, we simulate the effect of two massive CDR interventions with CO2 extraction rates of 5 GtC yr−1 and 25 GtC yr−1, respectively, while CO2 emissions follow the extended RCP8.5 pathway. We falsify two hypotheses: the first being that CDR can restore pre-industrial conditions in the ocean by reducing the atmospheric CO2 concentration back to its pre-industrial level, and the second being that high CO2 emissions rates (RCP8.5) followed by CDR have long-term oceanic consequences that are similar to those of low emissions rates (RCP2.6). Focusing on pH, temperature and dissolved oxygen, we find that even after several centuries of CDR deployment, past CO2 emissions would leave a substantial legacy in the marine environment.

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Figure 1: Globally averaged atmospheric variables.
Figure 2: Anomalies of globally averaged ocean variables for surface and entire ocean.
Figure 3: Zonally averaged anomalies of pH, temperature and dissolved oxygen, in year 2500.
Figure 4: Globally averaged pH anomalies as a function of atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Figure 5: Depth-resolved evolution of zonally averaged pH anomalies.

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Acknowledgements

Computational resources were provided by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). CO2 emission data were provided by M. Meinshausen from PIK, downloaded from his website: http://www.pik-potsdam.de/˜mmalte/rcps.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, PO Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany

    Sabine Mathesius, Matthias Hofmann & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

  2. GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Düsternbrooker Weg 20 24105 Kiel, Germany,

    Sabine Mathesius

  3. Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, California 94305, USA

    Ken Caldeira

  4. Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501, USA,

    Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

Authors
  1. Sabine Mathesius
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  2. Matthias Hofmann
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  3. Ken Caldeira
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  4. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
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Contributions

H.J.S. conceived and designed the study with S.M., M.H. and K.C. M.H. coupled the EMIC CLIMBER-3α with the biogeochemical model and S.M. wrote the CDR code. S.M. carried out the simulations, analysed the results and produced the figures under the guidance of M.H., K.C. and H.J.S. S.M. wrote the first draft and all authors made contributions to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sabine Mathesius.

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Mathesius, S., Hofmann, M., Caldeira, K. et al. Long-term response of oceans to CO2 removal from the atmosphere. Nature Clim Change 5, 1107–1113 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2729

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