The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked1–3, yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently4,5. Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintaining the resilience and stability of the Earth system (safe ESBs) and minimizing exposure to significant harm to humans from Earth system change (a necessary but not sufficient condition for justice)4. The stricter of the safe or just boundaries sets the integrated safe and just ESB. Our findings show that justice considerations constrain the integrated ESBs more than safety considerations for climate and atmospheric aerosol loading. Seven of eight globally quantified safe and just ESBs and at least two regional safe and just ESBs in over half of global land area are already exceeded. We propose that our assessment provides a quantitative foundation for safeguarding the global commons for all people now and into the future.
Terrestrial and oceanic carbon sinks together sequester >50% of the anthropogenic emissions, and the major uncertainty in the global carbon budget is related to the terrestrial carbon cycle. Hence, it is important to understand the major drivers of the land carbon uptake to make informed decisions on climate change mitigation policies. In this paper, we assess the major drivers of the land carbon uptake-CO 2 fertilization, nitrogen deposition, climate change, and land use/land cover changes (LULCC)-from existing literature for the historical period and future scenarios, focusing on the results from fifth Coupled Models Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The existing literature shows that the LULCC fluxes have led to a decline in the terrestrial carbon stocks during the historical period, despite positive contributions from CO 2 fertilization and nitrogen deposition. However, several studies find increases in the land carbon sink in recent decades and suggest that CO 2 fertilization is the primary driver (up to 85%) of this increase followed by nitrogen deposition (∼10%-20%). For the 21st century, terrestrial carbon stocks are projected to increase in the majority of CMIP5 simulations under the representative concentration pathway 2.6 (RCP2.6), RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 scenarios, mainly due to CO 2 fertilization. These projections indicate that the effects of nitrogen deposition in future scenarios are small (∼2%-10%), and climate warming would lead to a loss of land carbon. The vast majority of the studies consider the effects of only one or two of the drivers, impairing comprehensive assessments of the relative contributions of the drivers. Further, the broad range in magnitudes and scenario/model dependence of the sensitivity factors pose challenges in unambiguous projections of land carbon uptake. Improved representation of processes such as LULCC, fires, nutrient limitation and permafrost thawing in the models are necessary to constrain the present-day carbon cycle and for more accurate future projections.
The empirical “amount effect” observed in the distribution of stable water isotope ratios in tropical precipitation is used in several studies to reconstruct past precipitation. Recent observations suggest the importance of large‐scale organized convection systems on amount effect. With a series of experiments with Community Atmospheric Model version 3.0 with water isotope tracers, we quantify the sensitivity of amount effect to changes in modeled deep convection. The magnitude of the regression slope between long‐term monthly precipitation amount and isotope ratios in precipitation over tropical ocean reduces by more than 20% with a reduction in mean deep convective precipitation by about 60%, indicating a decline in fractionation efficiency. Reduced condensation in deep convective updrafts results in enrichment of lower level vapor with heavier isotope that causes enrichment in total precipitation. However, consequent increases in stratiform and shallow convective precipitation partially offset the reduction in the slope of amount effect. The net result is a reduced slope of amount effect in tropical regions except the tropical western Pacific, where the effects of enhanced large‐scale ascent and increased stratiform precipitation prevail over the influence of reduced deep convection. We also find that the isotope ratios in precipitation are improved over certain regions in the tropics with reduced deep convection, showing that analyses of isotope ratios in precipitation and water vapor are powerful tools to improve precipitation processes in convective parameterization schemes in climate models. Further, our study suggests that the precipitation types over a region can alter the fractionation efficiency of isotopes with implications for the reconstructions of past precipitation.
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