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Reduced CO2 uptake and growing nutrient sequestration from slowing overturning circulation

Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 83–90 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Current Earth system models (ESMs) project dramatic slowing (28–42% by 2100) of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and Southern Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC) across a range of climate scenarios, with a complete shutdown of SMOC possible by year 2300. Slowing meridional overturning circulation (MOC) differentially impacts the ocean biological and solubility carbon pumps, leaving the net impact on ocean carbon uptake uncertain. Here using a suite of ESMs, we show that slowing MOC reduces anthropogenic carbon uptake by the solubility pump but increases deep-ocean storage of carbon and nutrients by the biological pump. The net effect reduces ocean uptake of anthropogenic CO2. The deep-ocean nutrient sequestration will increasingly depress global-scale, marine net primary production over time. MOC slowdown represents a positive feedback that could extend or intensify peak-warmth climate conditions on multi-century timescales.

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Fig. 1: Slowing MOC with strong climate warming.
Fig. 2: Changes in meridional overturning, carbon export and carbon storage by 2100.
Fig. 3: Slowing SMOC rates reduce ocean carbon uptake.
Fig. 4: Shifting carbon and nutrient distributions over time with climate warming.
Fig. 5: Biological export and changing circulation contributions to regenerated carbon storage.

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Data availability

Relevant outputs from the CMIP5 and CMIP6 models are freely available from the Earth System Grid Federation (https://www.earthsystemgrid.org). The CESMv1 model outputs are available through the ESGF data delivery system at https://www.earthsystemgrid.org/dataset/ucar.cgd.ccsm4.randerson2015.html. The offline model outputs are available from Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7402493). Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

Codes used in the analysis of the CMIP datasets are available from Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7402493).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the thousands of scientists worldwide who contributed to the development of the Earth system models for CMIP and to carrying out the CMIP6 simulations. We received support from the Reducing Uncertainties in Biogeochemical Interactions through Synthesis and Computation Scientific Focus Area (RUBISCO SFA) under the Regional and Global Analysis Program Area (RGMA) and the Earth System Model Development Program Area (ESMD) in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division of the Biological and Environmental Research Division of the US Department of Energy Office of Science. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project received support from the World Climate Research Programme and the US Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison. We acknowledge funding from US Department of Energy BER RGMA (RUBISCO SFA) (J.K.M., Y.L.), US Department of Energy DOE-BER ESMD grant DE-SC0016539 (J.K.M., F.P., W.L.W.), US Department of Energy DOE-BER ESMD grant DE-SC0021267 (F.P., J.K.M.) and US Department of Energy DOE-BER ESMD grant DE-SC0022177 (J.K.M., F.P.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Y. Liu, J. K. Moore & F. Primeau

  2. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

    W. L. Wang

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Contributions

Conceptualization: J.K.M., Y.L. and F.P. Data curation: Y.L. Formal analysis: Y.L., J.K.M., F.P. and W.L.W. Funding acquisition: J.K.M. and F.P. Investigation: Y.L., J.K.M., F.P. and W.L.W. Methodology: Y.L., J.K.M., F.P. and WLW. Project administration: J.K.M. Software: Y.L., F.P. and W.L.W. Writing–original draft: Y.L. and J.K.M. Writing–review and editing: J.K.M., Y.L., F.P. and W.L.W.

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Correspondence to Y. Liu or J. K. Moore.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Slowdown of Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) in CMIP5 (RCP8.5-ECP8.5) and CMIP6 (SSP1-2.6 and SSP2-4.5).

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Southern Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC) calculated from available CMIP5 models and CMIP6 models (Sv) are shown. The CESMv1 simulation is included and shown here as light blue line. Black lines show the multi-model mean, and light and dark pink shading indicate the range and one standard deviation of the overturning circulation. Black circles and error bars show mean and standard deviation of the observational estimates of MOC rates in Supplementary Table 1.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Declining Southern Ocean AABW Formation and SMOC.

Dissolved oxygen distributions (mmol/m3) at shelf depths (200–400 m) are shown in panel A for decades (1850s, 1990s, 2090 s, 2190 s, and 2290 s) with time series of mean stratification (kg/m3, calculated by \(\rho _{400m} - \rho _{0m}\)) in the Weddell Sea (black line) and Ross Sea (red line, B). Panel C and D compare mean stratification (south of 60 oS) versus the SMOC rates (Sv), and mean depth boundary between the AMOC and the SMOC compared with the SMOC fraction of total global overturning circulation in the 1990s for the CMIP6 models. The number in C) and D) indicate the number of models in Supplementary Table 1. The ‘RS’ and ‘WS’ represent Ross Sea and Weddell Sea.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 3 Deep ocean carbon accumulation (> 2000m) in CESMv1 RCP8.5 and 13 CMIP6 models under the SSP5-8.5 warming scenario.

The time series of DIC partitioning in CESMv1 (A), ACCESS-ESM1-5 (B), CanESM5 (C), CMCC-ESM2 (D), EC-Earth3-CC (E), GFDL-ESM4 (F), IPSL-CM6A-LR (G), MPI-ESM1-2-HR (H), MPI-ESM1-2-LR (I), CanESM5-CanOE (J), CNRM-ESM2-1 (K), MIROC-ES2L (L), MRI-ESM2-0 (M) and UKESM1-0-LL (N), where the black, red and blue line represents the total DIC, regenerated DIC and preformed DIC accumulation below 2000m depth (PgC/yr). Changing rates of the Southern-sourced Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC) and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) are also shown for each model.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Deep ocean carbon accumulation and meridional overturning rates in twelve CMIP6 models under SSP2-4.5 scenario.

The time series of DIC partitioning in ACCESS-ESM1-5 (A), CanESM5 (B), CMCC-ESM2 (C), EC-Earth3-CC (D), GFDL-ESM4 (E), IPSL-CM6A-LR (F), MPI-ESM1-2-HR (G), MPI-ESM1-2-LR (H), CanESM5-CanOE (I), CNRM-ESM2-1 (J), MIROC-ES2L (K) and UKESM1-0-LL(L), where the black, red and blue line represents the total DIC, regenerated DIC and preformed DIC accumulation below 2000m depth (PgC/yr). Changing rates of the Southern-sourced Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC) and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) are also shown for each model.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 Deep ocean carbon accumulation and meridional overturning rates in eight CMIP6 models under the SSP1-2.6 warming scenario.

The time series of DIC partitioning in CanESM5 (A), GFDL-ESM4 (B), IPSL-CM6A-LR (C), MPI-ESM1-2-HR (D), MPI-ESM1-2-LR (E), CanESM5-CanOE (F), CNRM-ESM2-1 (G) and UKESM1-0-LL (H), where the black, red and blue lines represent the total DIC, regenerated DIC and preformed DIC below 2000m depth (PgC/yr). Changing rates of the Southern-sourced Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC) and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) are also shown for each model.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 6 Slowing SMOC rates on intermediate ocean carbon uptake.

The intermediate water (100–2000 m) storage of regenerated dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) (top row, A-C), preformed DIC (middle row, D-F), and total DIC (bottom row, G-I) by year 2100 (2080–2099 compared to 1850–1869) from eleven CMIP6 SSP1-2.6 projections (left column), twelve CMIP6 SSP2-4.5 projections (middle column), and thirteen CMIP6 SSP5-8.5 projections (right column) are compared with the relative declines of export production and SMOC rates (regenerated DIC) and declines in SMOC rate (preformed DIC and total DIC) by year 2100 (2080-2099 compared to 1850–1869). Plotted numbers indicate model number in Supplementary Table 1.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 7 Slowing SMOC rates on deep ocean carbon uptake.

The deep water (>2000m) storage of regenerated dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) (top row, A-C), preformed DIC (middle row, D-F), and total DIC (bottom row, G-I) by year 2100 (2080–2099 compared to 1850–1869) from eleven CMIP6 SSP1-2.6 projections (left column), twelve CMIP6 SSP2-4.5 projections (middle column), and thirteen CMIP6 SSP5-8.5 projections (right column) are compared with the relative declines of export production and SMOC rates (regenerated DIC) and declines in SMOC rate (preformed DIC and total DIC) by year 2100 (2080–2099 compared to 1850–1869). Plotted numbers indicate model number in Supplementary Table 1.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 8 Separating biology and circulation impacts on regenerated DIC accumulation in the deep ocean.

The contribution of varying circulation and sinking biological export to the deep ocean (> 2000m) regenerated DIC accumulation for MPI-ESM1-2-HR (A, B, C), MPI-ESM1-2-LR (D, E, F) and IPSL-CM6A-LR (G, H, I) from the CMIP6 under SSP5-8.5 (A, D, G), SSP2-4.5 (B, E, H), SSP1-2.6 (C, F, I) climate scenarios. The CESMv1 results from the CMIP5 under RCP8.5 (J) are also shown.

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Liu, Y., Moore, J.K., Primeau, F. et al. Reduced CO2 uptake and growing nutrient sequestration from slowing overturning circulation. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 83–90 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01555-7

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