Imperial College London
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ProfessorJoeriRogelj

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policy

Professor of Climate Science and Policy
 
 
 
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Contact

 

j.rogelj Website

 
 
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Location

 

304Weeks BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Graven:2020:10.1029/2019GB006170,
author = {Graven, H and Keeling, RF and Rogelj, J},
doi = {10.1029/2019GB006170},
journal = {Global Biogeochemical Cycles: an international journal of global change},
pages = {1--21},
title = {Changes to carbon isotopes in atmospheric CO2 over the industrial era and into the future},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019GB006170},
volume = {34},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - In this “Grand Challenges” paper, we review how the carbon isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2 has changed since the Industrial Revolution due to human activities and their influence on the natural carbon cycle, and we provide new estimates of possible future changes for a range of scenarios. Emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and land use change reduce the ratio of 13C/12C in atmospheric CO2 (δ13CO2). This is because 12C is preferentially assimilated during photosynthesis and δ13C in plant-derived carbon in terrestrial ecosystems and fossil fuels is lower than atmospheric δ13CO2. Emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion also reduce the ratio of 14C/C in atmospheric CO2 (Δ14CO2) because 14C is absent in million-year-old fossil fuels, which have been stored for much longer than the radioactive decay time of 14C. Atmospheric Δ14CO2 rapidly increased in the 1950s to 1960s because of 14C produced during nuclear bomb testing. The resulting trends in δ13C and Δ14C in atmospheric CO2 are influenced not only by these human emissions but also by natural carbon exchanges that mix carbon between the atmosphere and ocean and terrestrial ecosystems. This mixing caused Δ14CO2 to return toward preindustrial levels in the first few decades after the spike from nuclear testing. More recently, as the bomb 14C excess is now mostly well mixed with the decadally overturning carbon reservoirs, fossil fuel emissions have become the main factor driving further decreases in atmospheric Δ14CO2. For δ13CO2, in addition to exchanges between reservoirs, the extent to which 12C is preferentially assimilated during photosynthesis appears to have increased, slowing down the recent δ13CO2 trend slightly. A new compilation of ice core and flask δ13CO2 observations indicates that the decline in δ13CO2 since the preindustrial period is less than some prior estimates, which may have incorporated
AU  - Graven,H
AU  - Keeling,RF
AU  - Rogelj,J
DO  - 10.1029/2019GB006170
EP  - 21
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 0886-6236
SP  - 1
TI  - Changes to carbon isotopes in atmospheric CO2 over the industrial era and into the future
T2  - Global Biogeochemical Cycles: an international journal of global change
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019GB006170
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000595748400001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019GB006170
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/93402
VL  - 34
ER  -
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