Articles | Volume 17, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-1341-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-17-1341-2026
Research article
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25 Sep 2026
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 25 Sep 2026

Assessing Earth system responses in mitigation scenarios with activity-driven simulation of carbon dioxide removal

Jörg Schwinger, Leon Merfort, Nico Bauer, Raffaele Bernardello, Momme Butenschön, Timothée Bourgeois, Matthew J. Gidden, Shraddha Gupta, Hanna Lee, Nadine Mengis, Yiannis Moustakis, Helene Muri, Lars Nieradzik, Daniele Peano, Julia Pongratz, Pascal Sauer, Etienne Tourigny, and David Wårlind

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Cited articles

Anderegg, W. R. L., Wu, C., Acil, N., Carvalhais, N., Pugh, T. A. M., Sadler, J. P., and Seidl, R.: A climate risk analysis of Earth's forests in the 21st century, Science, 377, 1099–1103, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abp9723, 2022. 
Asaadi, A., Schwinger, J., Lee, H., Tjiputra, J., Arora, V., Séférian, R., Liddicoat, S., Hajima, T., Santana-Falcón, Y., and Jones, C. D.: Carbon cycle feedbacks in an idealized simulation and a scenario simulation of negative emissions in CMIP6 Earth system models, Biogeosciences, 21, 411–435, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-411-2024, 2024. 
Bauer, N., Rose, S. K., Fujimori, S., Van Vuuren, D. P., Weyant, J., Wise, M., Cui, Y., Daioglou, V., Gidden, M. J., Kato, E., Kitous, A., Leblanc, F., Sands, R., Sano, F., Strefler, J., Tsutsui, J., Bibas, R., Fricko, O., Hasegawa, T., Klein, D., Kurosawa, A., Mima, S., and Muratori, M.: Global energy sector emission reductions and bioenergy use: overview of the bioenergy demand phase of the EMF-33 model comparison, Climatic Change, 163, 1553–1568, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2226-y, 2020a. 
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Editorial statement
This paper is a very timely contribution that can be expected to be of broad interest to the Earth System Modelling and Integrated Assessment Modelling community. It deals with the topic of how to accurately assess the Earth system responses to Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) methods. It proposes approaches to create a no-CDR baseline against which the Earth system effects of activity-driven CDR can be evaluated, as well as a framework to quantify the direct effect of CDR on atmospheric carbon dioxide as well as the resulting feedbacks. Such a framework is essential for assessing the efficiency of activity-driven CDR in emissions-driven simulations, such as those proposed for CMIP7.
Short summary
Earth system models can simulate CO2 removal by representing the activity that draws down atmospheric CO2, e.g. growing bioenergy crops for energy production with carbon capture and storage or enhancing the oceans’ alkalinity. We describe a simulation framework, spanning the modeling chain from integrated assessment to Earth system models, that allows separating the intrinsic efficiency of CO2 removal and the overall atmospheric CO2 reduction, the latter being affected by Earth system feedbacks.
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