文章基本信息

标题：Characteristic disruptions of an excitable carbon cycle
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作者：Daniel H. Rothman ; Daniel H. Rothman
期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2019
卷号：116
期号：30
页码：14813-14822
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1905164116
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：The history of the carbon cycle is punctuated by enigmatic transient changes in the ocean’s store of carbon. Mass extinction is always accompanied by such a disruption, but most disruptions are relatively benign. The less calamitous group exhibits a characteristic rate of change whereas greater surges accompany mass extinctions. To better understand these observations, I formulate and analyze a mathematical model that suggests that disruptions are initiated by perturbation of a permanently stable steady state beyond a threshold. The ensuing excitation exhibits the characteristic surge of real disruptions. In this view, the magnitude and timescale of the disruption are properties of the carbon cycle itself rather than its perturbation. Surges associated with mass extinction, however, require additional inputs from external sources such as massive volcanism. Surges are excited when CO 2 enters the oceans at a flux that exceeds a threshold. The threshold depends on the duration of the injection. For injections lasting a time t i ≳ 10,000 y in the modern carbon cycle, the threshold flux is constant; for smaller t i , the threshold scales like t i − 1 . Consequently the unusually strong but geologically brief duration of modern anthropogenic oceanic CO 2 uptake is roughly equivalent, in terms of its potential to excite a major disruption, to relatively weak but longer-lived perturbations associated with massive volcanism in the geologic past.
关键词：carbon cycle ; mass extinctions ; excitable systems ; dynamical systems ; carbon isotopic events