However, the ocean\u2019s role as a carbon sink is complicated, and new research suggests that even under an ideal climate scenario\u2014one where humanity gets its act together and creates a net-negative carbon world\u2014heat trapped in the Southern Ocean could be \u201cburped\u201d up, producing anthropogenic climate change-like effects for decades or even centuries. The results of the study were published in the journal AGU Advances<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe find, after several centuries of global cooling under negative CO2 emissions, global atmospheric warming that is unrelated to CO2 emissions and is caused by ocean heat release,\u201d the authors wrote. \u201cThe rate of warming is comparable to average historical anthropogenic warming rates and lasts for more than a century.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Story<\/p>\n This may sound a bit like putting the cart before the horse. After all, we are still very much in the midst of the struggle of realizing this net-negative carbon world, especially as the Trump administration openly encourages other countries (along with the U.S.) to keep burning fossil fuels.<\/a> However, this study aims to ascertain what will happen to the planet once this net-negative carbon future\u2014whether driven by technological innovation<\/a> or, in the worst-case scenario, human extinction<\/a>\u2014is realized, and the picture complicates our efforts to return the planet to healthy climate equilibrium. <\/p>\n Using the University of Victoria climate model known as UVic v. 2.9, scientists simulated centuries of carbon-cycle feedback in the ocean by feeding the model with an \u201catmospheric energy-balance model, an ocean circulation and sea-ice model, a land biosphere and ocean biogeochemistry with two plankton groups,\u201d according to the authors. The results showed that over several centuries of cooling, an abrupt discharge of heat will increase global mean temperatures in a similar way to those experienced by humans between the post-industrial era and the (hopefully) net-negative carbon future<\/a>. <\/p>\n Luckily, due to the ocean\u2019s specific chemistry, not much carbon dioxide<\/a> would be released during this oceanic \u201cburp.\u201d But the impact of this released heat wouldn\u2019t be uniformly distributed across the planet, and that\u2019s its own problem. <\/p>\n Related Story<\/p>\n \u201cOur results show that CO2 is largely prevented from escaping to the atmosphere because of a compensating shift of biologically processed carbon in the ocean interior versus carbon that is brought down physically via transports and mixing,\u201d the authors wrote. \u201cWhile the heat release from the Southern Ocean has global impacts, it comes with a clear hemispheric asymmetry and an upswing of surface warming that is greatest and longest-lasting in the southern hemisphere, suggesting a greater impact on today\u2019s more vulnerable countries of the global south.\u201d<\/p>\n The authors admit that their model is of intermediate-level complexity, and assumes a rosy climate future. But according to EOS<\/a>, this oceanic heat burp also emerged when the situation was analyzed using other modeling setups. <\/p>\n
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