Schwinger et al. [Preprint]: Emit now, mitigate later? Earth system reversibility under overshoots of different magnitude and duration

Jörg Schwinger, Ali Asaadi, Norman Julius Steinert, Hanna Lee IN: Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2022-39, in review, 2022

Reversibility is, next to socio-economic feasibility and sustainability, key for assessing if carbon dioxide removal (CDR) could be considered to return the Earth system to a less dangerous state after a period of temperature overshoot above a level that is considered safe. The authors use a state-of-the-art Earth system model that includes a representation of permafrost carbon to investigate the reversibility of the Earth system after overshoots of different duration and magnitude in idealized simulations. They find that atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are slightly lower after an overshoot, compared to a reference simulation without overshoot, due to a near-perfect compensation of carbon losses from land by increased ocean carbon uptake during the overshoot periods.

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