Enhanced knowledge and verification of GHG exchange and feedback mechanisms from both managed and natural ecosystems are crucial for planning mitigation and adaptation strategies, and to become climate neutral in the future. Many elements of the climate system, such as terrestrial ecosystems, ocean circulation, atmosphere-ocean gas exchanges, coastal zones, and their biogeochemical cycles, have an important influence on climate change and its impacts, but are not sufficiently understood by the latest science. There are especially large gaps in our knowledge of GHG fluxes at high latitudes where the warming occurs three times faster than the rest of the world, and the Arctic Ocean (AO) is notably becoming warmer and less saline due to the increase of riverine/glacier discharge. To move forward, it is essential to understand these high latitude GHG life cycles from a holistic perspective.
The overall objective of GreenFeedBack is to enhance our understanding of key processes of the GHG exchange between the atmosphere and the Arctic ecosystems, the connection between the ecosystems, and the impacts from human pressures. The work will be carried out in co-design workshops strengthening the uptake of research in society. From these studies we will advance the representation of GHG processes in ecosystems in existing Earth System Models taking human pressures into account, allowing for more certain climate change projections from which climate mitigation and adaptation strategies can be evaluated. We will assess the global feedback and effect on extreme events on the climate system, using the advanced Earth System Models. The outcomes will be communicated and disseminated through media coverage, public lectures and stakeholder workshops enhancing the societal awareness of the human impact on the GHG cycle and feedbacks.
Results from GreenFeedBack will raise policy-makers’ and society’s awareness of effects from human pressures, as well as extreme events on the GHG feedbacks. In the longer-term, GreenFeedBack will, through its outcomes and interaction with policy-makers and stakeholders, therefore contribute to a transition to a climate-neutral and resilient society enabled through advanced climate science, pathways and responses to climate change and behavioral transformations.
