Eleven coupled climate-carbon cycle models used a common protocol to study the coupling between climate change and the carbon cycle. The models were forced by historical emissions and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A2 anthropogenic emissions of CO 2 for the 1850-2100 time period. For each model, two simulations were performed in order to isolate the impact of climate change on the land and ocean carbon cycle, and therefore the climate feedback on the atmospheric CO 2 concentration growth rate. There was unanimous agreement among the models that future climate change will reduce the efficiency of the earth system to absorb the anthropogenic carbon perturbation. A larger fraction of anthropogenic CO 2 will stay airborne if climate change is accounted for. By the end of the twenty-first century, this additional CO 2 varied between 20 and 200 ppm for the two extreme models, the majority of the models lying between 50 and 100 ppm. The higher CO 2 levels led to an additional climate warming ranging between 0.1°and 1.5°C.All models simulated a negative sensitivity for both the land and the ocean carbon cycle to future climate. However, there was still a large uncertainty on the magnitude of these sensitivities. Eight models attributed most of the changes to the land, while three attributed it to the ocean. Also, a majority of the models located the reduction of land carbon uptake in the Tropics. However, the attribution of the land sensitivity to changes in net primary productivity versus changes in respiration is still subject to debate; no consensus emerged among the models.

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We examined climate‐carbon cycle feedback by performing a global warming experiment using MIROC‐based coupled climate‐carbon cycle model. The model showed that by the end of the 21st century, warming leads to a further increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) level of 123 ppm by volume (ppmv). This positive feedback can mostly be attributed to land‐based soil‐carbon dynamics. On a regional scale, Siberia experienced intense positive feedback, because the acceleration of microbial respiration due to warming causes a decrease in the soil carbon level. Amazonia also had positive feedback resulting from accelerated microbial respiration. On the other hand, some regions, such as western and central North America and South Australia, experienced negative feedback, because enhanced litterfall surpassed the increased respiration in soil carbon. The oceanic contribution to the feedback was much weaker than the land contribution on global scale, but the positive feedback in the northern North Atlantic was as strong as those in Amazonia and Siberia in our model. In the northern North Atlantic, the weakening of winter mixing caused a reduction of CO2 absorption at the surface. Moreover, weakening of the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water caused reduced CO2 subduction to the deep water. Understanding such regional‐scale differences may help to explain disparities in coupled climate‐carbon cycle model results.

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