Professor Ranga Myneni publishes in PLOS ONE
Professor Ranga Myneni of the BU Department of Earth & Environment published a research article titled “Carbon system state determines warming potential of emissions“, authored by Alexander J. Winkler, Ranga Myneni, Christian Reimers, Markus Reichstein, and Victor Brovkin.
This article studies the relationship between cumulative carbon emissions and surface warming, and demonstrates that atmospheric CO2 and warming vary with emission timing. It emphasizes the need for refined models that consider carbon system state dependencies.
Our experiments… reveal a nuanced understanding of [balance of oceanic heat and carbon uptake moderates pathway dependence in Transient Climate Response to Cumulative Carbon Emissions]. We find that considering an improved representation of the terrestrial biosphere, reflecting various time-scales, introduces non-negligible pathway dependence into TCRE. In other words, oceanic heat uptake compensates for some, but not all, of the pathway dependence induced by the carbon cycle response.
– Winkler et al. 2024