Comparing the climate response to cumulative CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and land-use

Abstract:

Recent research has highlighted the linear response of global temperature to cumulative CO2 emissions, implying that the timing and amount of emissions does not affect the climate response. These analyses have typically assumed that the climate response to land-use CO2 emissions is equivalent to that of fossil fuels and not sensitive to the source of the emission. However, land-use and land-cover change also affects properties such as surface albedo and the strength of terrestrial carbon sinks, which can afford significant feedbacks on both climate and the carbon cycle. Both albedo changes and terrestrial uptake have the potential to affect the climate response to land-use CO2 emissions and challenge the assumption that temperature will respond in a similar manner an equivalent CO2 emission from fossil fuel combustion. In the study, we use a coupled climate-carbon cycle model to assess the climate response to cumulative land-use CO2 emissions and compare it to the corresponding climate response to fossil fuel emissions.