Andrew Lenton

• BSc, BAntStud(Hons), PhD
• Director CarbonLock at CSIRO Environment

By March 2020 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was anticipated to present a major challenge to the work undertaken by scientists. This pandemic could be considered just one of the shocks that human society has had and will be likely to confront again in the future. As strategic thinking about the future can assist performance and planning of sci...

Plain Language Summary To improve predictions of the ocean's ability to feed a growing human population and buffer a changing climate, we need to improve our understanding of what happens to carbon once it is absorbed into the surface ocean. One of the largest knowledge gaps in marine carbon cycling is the role of zooplankton grazing. The rate at w...

Exploring the Dynamics of Southern Ocean Eddies: Unravelling the Meridional Transport of Tracers. Our latest research paper, titled “Meridional Transport of Physical and Biogeochemical Tracers by Southern Ocean Eddies,” sheds light on the fascinating role of mesoscale eddies in the transient transport of heat, salt, and nitrate. Key Points: 1. Ho...

Anthropogenic warming of the oceans and associated deoxygenation are altering marine ecosystems. Current knowledge suggests these changes may be reversible on a centennial timescale at the ocean surface but irreversible at deeper depths even if global warming were to ameliorate. In contrast, the marine ecosystem’s response to these persistent chang...

Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, is a foundation species that forms dense forests of complex physical habitat and supports coastal biodiversity, productivity, and other essential ecosystem services. Tasmanian coasts have suffered a massive decline in giant kelp forests due to changes in regional oceanography and environmental conditions, but effor...

The current generation of Earth system models used by the United Nations to project future climate scenarios (CMIP6) relies heavily on marine biogeochemical models to track the fate of carbon absorbed into the oceans. Here we compare 11 CMIP6 marine biogeochemical models and find the largest source of inter-model uncertainty in their representation...

We use inverse modelling to infer the distribution and drivers of community-integrated zooplankton grazing dynamics based on the skill with which different grazing formulations recreate the satellite-observed seasonal cycle in phytoplankton biomass. We find that oligotrophic and eutrophic biomes require more and less efficient grazing dynamics, res...

Macrocystis pyrifera is a foundation species that creates kelp forests and supports essential ecosystem services across coastal environments. Over the past half-century, more than 95% of giant kelp forests have declined around Tasmania and Australia due to climate change, causing a near-complete loss of the ecosystems and services they support. Com...

Anthropogenic warming of the oceans and associated deoxygenation are altering marine ecosystems. Current knowledge suggests that these changes might be reversible in the centennial timescale in the ocean surface and irreversible at deeper depth if global warming were to decline. However, knowledge on the persistence of their combined effects on mar...

We examine how zooplankton influence phytoplankton bloom phenology from the top-down, then use inverse modelling to infer the distribution and drivers of mean community zooplankton grazing dynamics based on the skill with which different simulated grazing formulations are able to recreate the observed seasonal cycle in phytoplankton biomass. We fin...

For nearly a century, functional reizes beingponse curves, which describe how predation rates vary with prey density, have been a mainstay of ecological modelling. While originally derived to describe terrestrial interactions, they have been adopted to characterize aquatic systems in marine biogeochemical, size-spectrum, and population models. Howe...

Zooplankton grazing regulates marine carbon cycling by constraining phytoplankton populations and the subsequent transfer of carbon to depth and higher trophic levels. Yet, without robust in-situ data to constrain them, the grazing formulation in state-of-the-art climate models varies largely. We present a new metric to compare how fast zooplankton...

The ocean provides a major sink for anthropogenic heat and carbon. This sink results in ocean changes through the dual stressors of warming and acidification which can negatively impact the health of the marine ecosystem. Projecting the ocean’s future uptake is essential to understand and adapt to further climate change and its impact on the ocean....

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is a globally significant coral reef system supporting productive and diverse ecosystems. The GBR is under increasing threat from climate change and local anthropogenic stressors, with its general condition degrading over recent decades. In response to this, a number of techniques have been proposed to offset or amelior...

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate – the “global carbon budget” – is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we de...

In a rapidly changing world, scientists and research institutions need to plan for the infrastructure, skills, and policy engagement that will help society navigate social-ecological challenges. Foresighting draws on approaches used in strategic and long-range (>10 years) planning and participatory futures studies. Here, we describe a new quantitat...

Based on the 2019 assessment of the Global Carbon Project, the ocean took up on average, 2.5 ± 0.6 PgC yr⁻¹ or 23 ± 5% of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions over the decade 2009–2018. This sink estimate is based on simulation results from global ocean biogeochemical models (GOBMs) and is compared to data-products based on observations of surface...

Plain Language Summary Climate change is one of the main issues of sustainable development. The projection of climate change is important for assessment of impact on our environment, and the global climate model is used for the climate change projection. Accurate knowledge of momentum, heat, and carbon transfer at the atmosphere‐ocean interface, so...

The Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) has been extended to include land and ocean carbon cycle components to form an Earth System Model (ESM). The current version, ACCESS-ESM1.5, has been mainly developed to enable Australia to participate in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) with an ESM versio...

Results from the fully and biogeochemically coupled simulations in which CO2 increases at a rate of 1 % yr-1 (1pctCO2) from its preindustrial value are analyzed to quantify the magnitude of carbon–concentration and carbon–climate feedback parameters which measure the response of ocean and terrestrial carbon pools to changes in atmospheric CO2 conce...

Mesoscale eddies play a key role in modulating physical and biogeochemical properties across the global ocean. They also play a central role in cross‐frontal transport of heat, freshwater, and carbon, especially in the Southern Ocean. However, the role that eddies play in the biogeochemical cycles is not yet well constrained, partly due to a lack o...

Anthropogenic climate change is projected to lead to ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, reductions in near-surface nutrients, and changes to primary production, all of which are expected to affect marine ecosystems. Here we assess projections of these drivers of environmental change over the twenty-first century from Earth system models (...

Future levels of climate change depend not only on carbon emissions but also on carbon uptake by the land and the ocean. Here we are using the Earth system model (ESM1) version of the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) to explore the potential and impact of removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through the...

Abstract. Anthropogenic climate change leads to ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation and reductions in near-surface nutrient concentrations, all of which are expected to affect marine ecosystems. Here we assess projections of these drivers of environmental change over the twenty-first century from Earth system models (ESMs) participating in...

In a rapidly changing world, scientists and research institutions need to plan for the infrastructure, skills, and policy engagement that will help society navigate social-ecological challenges. Foresighting draws on approaches used in strategic and long-range (>10 years) planning and participatory futures studies. Here, we describe a new quantitat...

Abstract. Results from the fully-, biogeochemically-, and radiatively-coupled simulations in which CO₂ increases at a rate of 1 % per year (1pctCO2) from its pre-industrial value are analyzed to quantify the magnitude of two feedback parameters which characterize the coupled carbon-climate system. These feedback parameters quantify the r...

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere – the “global carbon budget” – is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and m...

Measurements show large decadal variability in the rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere that is not driven by CO2 emissions. The decade of the 1990s experienced enhanced carbon accumulation in the atmosphere relative to emissions, while in the 2000s, the atmospheric growth rate slowed, even though emissions grew rapidly. These variations are...

In the Southern Ocean, polynyas exhibit enhanced rates of primary productivity and represent large seasonal sinks for atmospheric CO2. Three contrasting east Antarctic polynyas were visited in late December to early January 2017: the Dalton, Mertz, and Ninnis polynyas. In the Mertz and Ninnis polynyas, phytoplankton biomass (average of 322 and 354...

The report provides an initial high-level review of twenty-seven proposed marine geoengineering techniques - with its potential subsets - for climate mitigation that focuses on their efficacy, practicality, side-effects, knowledge gaps, verification and potential environmental and socio-economic impacts.

Mesoscale eddies are ubiquitous in the Southern Ocean particularly in regions where the Antarctic Circumpolar Current interacts with topography. Eddies play a critical role in the meridional transport of heat and salt across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. However, observations of the heat and salt content of eddies are extremely rare. Here we p...

As atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise so too does the risk of severe impacts. Scientists clearly have an important role to play in preparing for and responding to climate change impacts, however, calls by scientists for global action have not led to the required changes. It is timely, therefore, for scientists to critically consider their own...

Southern Ocean (SO) nutrient export via mode and intermediate waters is known to affect global biological production. The accompanying effects on the CO2 flux outside the SO are less certain. We performed idealized model simulations to separate the transient effects of SO carbon pumps on nutrients, primary production, and CO2 flux outside the SO. T...

Geoengineering, or climate intervention, describes methods of deliberately altering the climate system to offset anthropogenic climate change. As an idealized representation of near-surface solar geoengineering over the ocean, such as marine cloud brightening, this paper discusses experiment G1ocean-albedo of the Geoengineering Model Intercompariso...

Increasing atmospheric CO2 is having detrimental effects on the Earth system. Societies have recognized that anthropogenic CO2 release must be rapidly reduced to avoid potentially catastrophic impacts. Achieving this via emissions reductions alone will be very difficult. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) has been suggested to complement and compensate f...

Ocean acidification is a global phenomenon, but it is overlaid by pronounced regional variability modulated by local physics, chemistry and biology. Recognition of its multifaceted nature and the interplay of acidification with other ocean drivers has led to international and regional initiatives to establish observation networks and develop unifyi...

We examine extreme temperature and precipitation under two potential geoengineering methods forming part of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP). The solar dimming experiment G1 is designed to completely offset the global mean radiative forcing due to a CO2-quadrupling experiment (abrupt4 × CO2), while in GeoMIP experiment G4,...

Accounting for the oceanic transport of carbon suggests that existing estimates of the location and magnitude of the land carbon sinks need to be revised.

Marine cloud brightening has been proposed as a means of geoengineering/climate intervention, or deliberately altering the climate system to offset anthropogenic climate change. As an idealized representation of marine cloud brightening, this paper discusses experiment G1ocean-albedo of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP), inv...

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels continue to rise, increasing the risk of severe impacts on the Earth system, and on the ecosystem services that it provides. Artificial ocean alkalinization (AOA) is capable of reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations and surface warming and addressing ocean acidification. Here, we simulate global and regional...

The recent IPCC reports state that continued anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are changing the climate, threatening “severe, pervasive and irreversible” impacts. Slow progress in emissions reduction to mitigate climate change is resulting in increased attention to what is called geoengineering, climate engineering, or climate intervention – d...

Carbon–climate feedbacks have the potential to significantly impact the future climate by altering atmospheric CO2 concentrations . By modifying the future atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the carbon–climate feedbacks will also influence the future ocean acidification trajectory. Here, we use the CO2 emissions scenarios from four representative conc...

We examine extreme temperature and precipitation under two potential geoengineering methods forming part of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP). The solar dimming experiment G1 is designed to completely offset the global mean radiative forcing due to a CO2-quadrupling experiment (abrupt 4 × CO2), while in GeoMIP experiment G4,...

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere – the “global carbon budget” – is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and m...

The vertical transport of surface water and carbon into ocean’s interior, known as subduction, is one of the main mechanisms through which the ocean influences Earth’s climate. New instrumental approaches have shown the occurrence of localized and intermittent subduction episodes associated with small-scale ocean circulation features. These studies...

Greenhouse gas emissions urgently need to be reduced. Even with a step up in mitigation, the goal of limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 °C remains challenging. Consequences of missing these goals are substantial, especially on regional scales. Because progress in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions has been slow, climate enginee...

Here we show results from Earth system model simulations from the marine cloud brightening experiment G4cdnc of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP). The nine contributing models prescribe a 50 % increase in the cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC) of low clouds over the global oceans in an experiment dubbed G4cdnc, with t...

The vertical transport of surface water and carbon into ocean's interior, known as subduction, is one of the main mechanisms through which the ocean influences Earth's climate. New instrumental approaches have shown the occurrence of localized and intermittent subduction episodes associated with small-scale ocean circulation features. These studies...

The Southern Ocean has taken up more than 40% of the total anthropogenic carbon (Cant) stored in the oceans since the preindustrial era, mainly in subantarctic mode and intermediate waters (SAMW-AAIW). However, the physical mechanisms responsible for the transfer of Cant into the ocean interior remain poorly understood. Here, we use high resolution...

Increasing sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are predicted to adversely impact coral populations worldwide through increasing thermal bleaching events. Future bleaching is unlikely to be spatially uniform. Therefore, understanding what determines regional differences will be critical for adaptation management. Here, using a cumulative heat stress met...

Atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise, increasing the risk of severe impacts on the Earth system, and on the ecosystem services that it provides. Artificial Ocean Alkalization (AOA) is capable of reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, surface warming and addressing ocean acidification. Here we simulate global and regional responses to alkalinit...

The recent IPCC reports state that continued anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are changing the climate threatening "severe, pervasive and irreversible" impacts. Slow progress in emissions reduction to mitigate climate change is resulting in increased attention on what is called Geoengineering, Climate Engineering, or Climate Intervention – de...

The implications of a mesoscale eddy for relevant properties of the Southern Ocean carbon cycle is examined with in situ observations. We explored carbon properties inside a large (~190 km diameter) cyclonic eddy that detached from the Subantarctic Front (SAF) south of Tasmania in March 2016. Based on remote sensing, the eddy was present for ~2 mon...

Over the last decade many climate models have evolved into Earth system models (ESMs), which are able to simulate both physical and biogeochemical processes through the inclusion of additional components such as the carbon cycle. The Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) has been recently extended to include land and ocea...

Earth system models (ESMs) that incorporate carbon–climate feedbacks represent the present state of the art in climate modelling. Here, we describe the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS)-ESM1, which comprises atmosphere (UM7.3), land (CABLE), ocean (MOM4p1), and sea-ice (CICE4.1) components with OASIS-MCT coupling, to...

Carbon-climate feedbacks have the potential to significantly impact the future climate by altering atmospheric CO2 concentrations (Zaehle et al., 2010). By modifying the future atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the carbon-climate feedbacks will also influence the future trajectory for ocean acidification. Here, we use the CO2 emissions scenarios from...

Policy-and decision-makers require assessments of status and trends for marine species, habitats, and ecosystems to understand if human activities in the marine environment are sustainable, particularly in the face of global change. Central to many assessments are statistical and dynamical models of populations, communities, ecosystems, and their s...

First Workshop of the Carbon Dioxide Removal Model Intercomparison Project; Potsdam, Germany, 20–22 September 2016

We analyze the multi-earth system model responses of ocean temperatures and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) under an idealized solar radiation management scenario (G1) from the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project. All models simulate warming of the northern North Atlantic relative to no geoengineering, despite geoeng...

The ocean's ability to store large quantities of carbon, combined with the millennial longevity over which this reservoir is overturned, has implicated the ocean as a key driver of glacial–interglacial climates. However, the combination of processes that cause an accumulation of carbon within the ocean during glacial periods is still under debate....

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere – the “global carbon budget” – is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and m...

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere – the “global carbon budget” – is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and m...

Quantifying the surface to interior transport of Anthropogenic carbon (CA) is critical for projecting future carbon uptake and, for improved understanding of the role of the oceans in the global carbon cycle. Here we develop and apply a diagnostic tool that provides a volumetric streamfunction in (CA,σ0) coordinates to calculate the total diapycnal...

This poster describes experiments using the CSIRO Mk3L climate system model that investigates the contribution of physical and biogeochemical changes that occurred in the glacial ocean to the net carbon storage of the ocean. We find that in order for the ocean to store a greater amount of carbon during glacial conditions, which explains the drawdow...

The ocean's ability to store large quantities of carbon, combined with the millennial longevity over which this reservoir is overturned, has implicated the ocean as a key driver of glacial-interglacial climates. However, the combination of processes that cause an accumulation of carbon within the ocean during glacial periods is still under debate....

Over the last decade many climate models have evolved into earth system models (ESMs), which are able to simulate both physical and biogeochemical processes through the inclusion of additional components such as the carbon cycle. The Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator (ACCESS) has been recently extended to include land and ocea...

The ocean has become more acidic over the last 200 years in response increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. Documenting how the ocean has changed is critical for assessing how these changes impact marine ecosystems and for the management of marine resources. Here we use present-day ocean carbon observations, from shelf and offshore wat...

The equilibration of rising atmospheric with the ocean is lowering in tropical waters by about 0.01 every decade. Coral reefs and the ecosystems they support are regarded as one of the most vulnerable ecosystems to ocean acidification, threatening their long-term viability. In response to this threat, different strategies for buffering the impact o...

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is founded on reef-building corals. Corals build their exoskeletonwith aragonite, but ocean acidification is lowering the aragonite saturation state of seawater(Oa). The downscaling of ocean acidification projections from global to GBR scales requiresthe set of regional drivers controllingOato be resolved. Here we use a...

Supplementary Figures 1-8 and Supplementary Tables 1-2.

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and a methodology to quantify all ma...