Land Use, Carbon Sinks and Negative Emissions for Climate targets, LUCSNE4C
Abstract
I am applying for additional storage to support the continuation and expansion of my medium storage project, which is focused on storing and post-processing the Earth system model (ESM, EC-Earth) simulation outputs. My project now includes a collaboration with the Global Carbon Project for estimating global CH4 emissions, necessitating an additional 10TB of storage beyond my original allocation. A PhD student has been hired to assist with this project.
All simulations will be conducted under the large Compute Project S-CMIP (Swedish Climate Modelling and Contributions to International Projects) (NAISS 2024/1-12). In this project, I will run a series of global simulations for the peat sector of ISIMIP3b Group III, which accounts for future changes in direct human forcing, and the global CH4 budget for 2025. Two manuscripts related to the global CH4 budget for 2025 have already been submitted.
This project is funded by FORMAS under the title “Land Use, Carbon Sinks, and Negative Emissions for Climate Targets (LUCSNE4C)”. The aim is to generate new knowledge on the potential for achieving global climate targets, specifically limiting global warming to well below 2°C. Research suggests that to meet this goal, cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions must stay below 1000 GtC. Achieving this requires transformative societal changes, reduced emissions, increased carbon removal from the atmosphere by sinks, and the introduction of negative emissions via Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) combined with biomass for energy.
However, there are still unresolved questions about how carbon sinks will evolve under climate change and the sustainable production of biomass, considering other land uses. Climate change might weaken natural carbon sinks, thereby complicating the climate mitigation challenge. This project addresses these uncertainties using advanced climate and vegetation/ecosystem models. The starting point for the experiments is the “standard” emission pathway space for low-carbon futures, with a focus on studying the impacts of climate on sinks and the potential changes to “allowable” cumulative emissions. Additionally, we will explore the potential for enhancing carbon sinks globally and regionally, considering process uncertainties, and the feasibility of biomass production and negative emissions.
