Climate Change Research ›› 2014, Vol. 10 ›› Issue (6): 408-416.

### Responses of Ocean Carbon Cycle to Climate Change: Results from an Earth System Climate Model Simulation

Wang Shuangjing, Cao Long, Li Na

1. Department of Earth Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
• Received:2014-05-26 Revised:2014-07-24 Online:2014-11-30 Published:2014-11-30

Abstract: Based on the simulations using the University of Victoria Earth System Climate Model under the scenario of RCP8.5, the responses of ocean carbon cycle to increasing atmospheric CO2 and climate change from year 1800 to 2500 were analyzed. Relative to the simulation case with no climate change, the simulation with climate sensitivity 3.0 K shows that in 2100, due to the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentrations simulated sea surface temperature increases by 2.7 K, the intensity of the North Atlantic deep water formation reduces by 4.5 Sv, and oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2 decreases by 0.8 Pg C. As for ocean column inventory of anthropogenic CO2, climate change is found to have a large effect in the North Atlantic. During 1800-2500, compared to the simulation with no climate change, climate change causes a reduction of total anthropogenic CO2 column inventory in the entire ocean and North Atlantic by 23.1% and 32.0%, respectively. A set of simulations with climate sensitivity varying from 0.5 K to 4.5 K show that with a greater climate sensitivity climate change would have a larger effect in reducing the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.

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