Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems

Thornton, Peter E., Calvin, Katherine, Jones, Andrew D., Di Vittorio, Alan V., Bond-Lamberty, Ben, Chini, Louise, Shi, Xiaoying, Mao, Jiafu, Collins, William D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4463-9848, Edmonds, Jae, Thomson, Allison, Truesdale, John, Craig, Anthony, Branstetter, Marcia L. and Hurtt, George (2017) Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems. Nature Climate Change, 7 (7). pp. 496-500. ISSN 1758-678X

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Abstract

Fossil fuel combustion and land-use change are the two largest contributors to industrial-era increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Projections of these are thus fundamental inputs for coupled Earth system models (ESMs) used to estimate the physical and biological consequences of future climate system forcing. While historical data sets are available to inform past and current climate analyses, assessments of future climate change have relied on projections of energy and land use from energy-economic models, constrained by assumptions about future policy, land-use patterns and socio-economic development trajectories. Here we show that the climatic impacts on land ecosystems drive significant feedbacks in energy, agriculture, land use and carbon cycle projections for the twenty-first century. We find that exposure of human-appropriated land ecosystem productivity to biospheric change results in reductions of land area used for crops; increases in managed forest area and carbon stocks; decreases in global crop prices; and reduction in fossil fuel emissions for a low-mid-range forcing scenario. The feedbacks between climate-induced biospheric change and human system forcings to the climate system - demonstrated here - are handled inconsistently, or excluded altogether, in the one-way asynchronous coupling of energy-economic models to ESMs used to date.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Publisher Copyright: © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	environmental science (miscellaneous),social sciences (miscellaneous),sdg 8 - decent work and economic growth,sdg 13 - climate action,sdg 15 - life on land ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2301
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Related URLs:	https://www.scopus.com/pages/publication...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	06 Jul 2026 14:02
Last Modified:	12 Jul 2026 23:03
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103628
DOI:	10.1038/nclimate3310

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