Manabe, S. & Wetherald, R. T. The effects of doubling the CO2 concentration on the climate of a general circulation model.
Manabe, S. & Wetherald, R. T. The effect of doubling the CO2 concentration on the climate of a general circulation model.
On 10 May 2013, the concentration of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere passed the milestone level of 400 parts per million for the first time in human history.
GCMs have been employed to study the impacts of increased greenhouse gas concentrations on future climate conditions.
Using standard expressions for calculating the approximate change in radiative forcing resulting from the increase in different greenhouse gas concentrations (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Annual Greenhouse Gas Index), we can compare the climate impact of increasing CO2 and CH4.
Increasing social and managerial interest in mitigating rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the resulting impacts on climate has focused attention on the ecosystem service of forest carbon storage, including storage in HWP.
Reforestation and afforestation have been suggested as an important land use management in mitigating the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration under Kyoto Protocol of UN Framework Convention on climate change.
Projected temperature data of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) representative concentration pathways (RCP) 2.6 and RCP 8.5 are used for the periods of the 2020s (near future), 2050s (middle future) and 2080s (far future), integrated into hourly EnergyPlus Weather data files and modelled by Home Energy Efficient Design HEEDD) software to evaluate a difference in consumption.
Our results suggest that in this context paludified forests may turn from C sink to atmospheric C source (in turn increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration and providing a positive feedback on climate warming) if the increase in forest productivity does not compensate for carbon losses.
The 6-hourly atmospheric forcing fields are obtained from the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC5) Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario (RCP8.5) simulation that is available from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) archive [ Watanabe et al., 2011].
