Solar geoengineering has been proposed as a potential means to counteract anthropogenic climate change, yet it is unknown how such climate intervention might affect the Earth's climate on the millennial time scale. Here we use the HadCM3L model to conduct a 1000year sunshade geoengineering simulation in which solar irradiance is uniformly reduced by 4% to approximately offset global mean warming from an abrupt quadrupling of atmospheric CO2. During the 1000year period, modeled global climate, including temperature, hydrological cycle, and ocean circulation of the high-CO2 simulation departs substantially from that of the control preindustrial simulation, whereas the climate of the geoengineering simulation remains much closer to that of the preindustrial state with little drift. The results of our study do not support the hypothesis that nonlinearities in the climate system would cause substantial drift in the climate system if solar geoengineering was to be deployed on the timescale of a millennium.

Ocean acidification has the potential to adversely affect marine calcifying organisms, with substantial ocean ecosystem impacts projected over the 21st century. Characterizing the in situ sensitivity of calcifying ecosystems to natural variability in carbonate chemistry may improve our understanding of the long-term impacts of ocean acidification. We explore the potential for intensive temporal sampling to isolate the influence of carbonate chemistry on community calcification rates of a coral reef and compare the ratio of organic to inorganic carbon production to previous studies at the same location. Even with intensive temporal sampling, community calcification displays only a weak dependence on carbonate chemistry variability. However, across three years of sampling, the ratio of organic to inorganic carbon production is highly consistent. Although further work is required to quantify the spatial variability associated with such ratios, this suggests that these measurements have the potential to indicate the response of coral reefs to ongoing disturbance, ocean acidification, and climate change.

Nearly 17% of people in an international survey said they believed the existence of a secret large-scale atmospheric program (SLAP) to be true or partly true. SLAP is commonly referred to as 'chemtrails' or 'covert geoengineering', and has led to a number of websites purported to show evidence of widespread chemical spraying linked to negative impacts on human health and the environment. To address these claims, we surveyed two groups of experts-atmospheric chemists with expertize in condensation trails and geochemists working on atmospheric deposition of dust and pollution-to scientifically evaluate for the first time the claims of SLAP theorists. Results show that 76 of the 77 scientists (98.7%) that took part in this study said they had not encountered evidence of a SLAP, and that the data cited as evidence could be explained through other factors, including well-understood physics and chemistry associated with aircraft contrails and atmospheric aerosols. Our goal is not to sway those already convinced that there is a secret, large-scale spraying program-who often reject counter-evidence as further proof of their theories-but rather to establish a source of objective science that can inform public discourse.

Projections of ocean acidification have often been based on ocean carbon cycle models that do not represent deep-sea sedimentation and terrestrial weathering. Here we use an Earth system model of intermediate complexity to quantify the effect of sedimentation and weathering on projections of ocean acidification under an intensive CO2 emission scenario that releases 5000 Pg C after year 2000. In our simulations, atmospheric CO2 reaches a peak concentration of 2123 ppm near year 2300 with a maximum reduction in surface pH of 0.8. Consideration of deep-sea sedimentation and terrestrial weathering has negligible effect on these peak changes. Only after several millenniums, sedimentation and weathering feedbacks substantially affect projected ocean acidification. Ten thousand years from today, in the constant-alkalinity simulation, surface pH is reduced by similar to 0.7 with 95% of the polar oceans undersaturated with respect to calcite, and no ocean has a calcite saturation horizon (CSH) that is deeper than 1000 m. With the consideration of sediment feedback alone, surface pH is reduced by similar to 0.5 with 35% of the polar oceans experiencing calcite undersaturation, and 8% global ocean has a CSH deeper than 1000 m. With the addition of weathering feedback, depending on the weathering parameterizations, surface pH is reduced by 0.2-0.4 with no polar oceans experiencing calcite undersaturation, and 30-80% ocean has a CSH that is deeper than 1000 m. Our results indicate that deep-sea sedimentation and terrestrial weathering play an important role in long-term ocean acidification, but have little effect on mitigating ocean acidification in the coming centuries.

In this paper, using the fully coupled NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM1.0.4), we investigate the relative importance of CO2-fertilization, climate warming, anthropogenic nitrogen deposition, and land use and land cover change (LULCC) for terrestrial carbon uptake during the historical period (1850-2005). In our simulations, between the beginning and end of this period, we find an increase in global net primary productivity (NPP) on land of about 4 PgCyr(-1) (8.2 %) with a contribution of 2.3 PgCyr(-1) from CO2-fertilization and 2.0 PgCyr(-1) from nitrogen deposition. Climate warming also causes NPP to increase by 0.35 PgCyr(-1) but LULCC causes a decline of 0.7 PgCyr(-1). These results indicate that the recent increase in vegetation productivity is most likely driven by CO2 fertilization and nitrogen deposition. Further, we find that this configuration of CESM projects that the global terrestrial ecosystem has been a net source of carbon during 1850-2005 (release of 45.1 +/- 2.4 PgC), largely driven by historical LULCC related CO2 fluxes to the atmosphere. During the recent three decades (early 1970s to early 2000s), however, our model simulations project that the terrestrial ecosystem acts as a sink, taking up about 10 PgC mainly due to CO2 fertilization and nitrogen deposition. Our results are in good qualitative agreement with recent studies that indicate an increase in vegetation production and water use efficiency in the satellite era and that the terrestrial ecosystem has been a net sink for carbon in recent decades.

Evidence from the 100-most cited papers ever published in ERL indicates the disproportionately large scientific impact of small groups of authors. The median number of authors on these 100 most-cited papers was 3.5, and 72 out of the 100 most cited papers had 5 or fewer authors. This indicates that small groups of authors often produce the work with the greatest impact, even in an inter-disciplinary setting. This suggests that it may be wise to institute policy changes that discourage inflation of author lists and that encourage the funding of research conducted by single investigators and small groups of researchers.

Understanding the temporal dynamics of present thermal and pH exposure on coral reefs is crucial for elucidating reef response to future global change. Diel ranges in temperature and carbonate chemistry parameters coupled with seasonal changes in the mean conditions define periods during the year when a reef habitat is exposed to anomalous thermal and/or pH exposure. Anomalous conditions are defined as values that exceed an empirically estimated threshold for each variable. We present a 200-day time series from June through December 2010 of carbonate chemistry and environmental parameters measured on the Heron Island reef flat. These data reveal that aragonite saturation state, pH, and pCO(2) were primarily modulated by biologically-driven changes in dissolved organic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA), rather than salinity and temperature. The largest diel temperature ranges occurred in austral spring, in October (1.5 - 6.6 degrees C) and lowest diel ranges (0.9 - 3.2 degrees C) were observed in July, at the peak of winter. We observed large diel total pH variability, with a maximum range of 7.7 - 8.5 total pH units, with minimum diel average pH values occurring during spring and maximum during fall. As with many other reefs, the nighttime pH minima on the reef flat were far lower than pH values predicted for the open ocean by 2100. DIC and TA both increased from June (end of Fall) to December (end of Spring). Using this high-resolution dataset, we developed exposure metrics of pH and temperature individually for intensity, duration, and severity of low pH and high temperature events, as well as a combined metric. Periods of anomalous temperature and pH exposure were asynchronous on the Heron Island reef flat, which underlines the importance of understanding the dynamics of co-occurrence of multiple stressors on coastal ecosystems.

In most climate models, after an abrupt increase in radiative forcing the climate feedback parameter magnitude decreases with time. We demonstrate how the evolution of the pattern of ocean heat uptake-moving from a more homogeneous toward a heterogeneous and high-latitude-enhanced pattern-influences not only regional but also global climate feedbacks. We force a slab ocean model with scaled patterns of ocean heat uptake derived from a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model. Steady state results from the slab ocean approximate transient results from the dynamic ocean configuration. Our results indicate that cloud radiative effects play an important role in decreasing the magnitude of the climate feedback parameter. The ocean strongly affects atmospheric temperatures through both heat uptake and through influencing atmospheric feedbacks. This highlights the challenges associated with reliably predicting transient or equilibrated climate system states from shorter-term climate simulations and observed climate variability.

Earth's Future invited "leading experts in the field of geoengineering research to contribute brief reflections (2-5 pages) on the development of the discussion over the past decade and to consider where it may be going in the next 10 years." Responding to this request, we offer the following text in the spirit of reflections that emphasize our personal roles and viewpoints. The primary focus of many of our comments is solar geoengineering and not carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Thus, this text is not intended to comprise a comprehensive review or set of carefully documented analyses. Our primary conclusion is that sustained progress in "geoengineering" research will depend on social and material support for experimental work that can provide the observational basis for improved modeling and analysis, and, potentially, development and deployment of systems that may help protect the environment and improve human well-being. Relevant issues, and potential future trajectories, for CDR technologies may differ dramatically from those for solar geoengineering technologies.