Integrated Earth System Model Research Articles

Development of anthropogenic water regulation for Community integrated Earth System model (CIESM)

This study examines the impact of anthropogenic water regulation (AWR) on hydroclimatic systems by incorporating an AWR module into the Community Integrated Earth System Model (CIESM), validated against GRACE satellite data. This approach assesses the influence of human activities, including irrigation and groundwater extraction, on global and regional hydrology and climate. Key findings include: Implementation of the AWR module significantly improves terrestrial water storage (TWS) simulation accuracy in CIESM. The correlation coefficient for global-scale TWS improved from 0.33 in the control (CTRL) to 0.89 in the experiment (EXP). Notably, the model's performance enhanced in Northern India and the North China Plain, while the Central United States showed limited improvement. AWR markedly alters the global water cycle, evidenced by substantial increases in soil moisture (about 0.04 to 0.02 m3/m3) and evapotranspiration. These changes have led to increased latent heat flux (around 5 W/m2) and a decrease in temperature by 0.1 °C to 1 °C in heavily irrigated regions. The study highlights the role of AWR in modifying the energy balance, particularly in agricultural areas where irrigation exerts a significant cooling effect. Despite its potential, the study identifies considerable uncertainties in coupling AWR within the CIESM model, related to inherent model limitations, incomplete water intake data, variable groundwater levels, and simplifications in water transfer parameters. Future research should aim to refine these aspects, focusing on enhancing the physical mechanisms and performance of AWR modules in hydroclimatic simulations. In conclusion, this research underscores the substantial modifications in hydrological and climatic conditions due to human activities. The improved AWR scheme within CIESM provides valuable insights for understanding and predicting climate change impacts on water resources, demonstrating its utility in simulating complex hydroclimatic changes at both global and regional scales.

A diatom extension to the cGEnIE Earth system model – EcoGEnIE 1.1

Abstract. We extend the ecological component (ECOGEM) of the carbon-centric Grid-Enabled Integrated Earth system model (cGEnIE) to include a diatom functional group. ECOGEM represents plankton community dynamics via a spectrum of ecophysiological traits originally based on size and plankton food web (phyto- and zooplankton; EcoGEnIE 1.0), which we developed here to account for a diatom functional group (EcoGEnIE 1.1). We tuned EcoGEnIE 1.1, exploring a range of ecophysiological parameter values specific to phytoplankton, including diatom growth and survival (18 parameters over 550 runs) to achieve best fits to observations of diatom biogeography and size class distribution as well as to global ocean nutrient and dissolved oxygen distributions. This, in conjunction with a previously developed representation of opal dissolution and an updated representation of the ocean iron cycle in the water column, resulted in an improved distribution of dissolved oxygen in the water column relative to the previous EcoGEnIE 1.0, with global export production (7.4 Gt C yr−1) now closer to previous estimates. Simulated diatom biogeography is characterised by larger size classes dominating at high latitudes, notably in the Southern Ocean, and smaller size classes dominating at lower latitudes. Overall, diatom biological productivity accounts for ∼20 % of global carbon biomass in the model, with diatoms outcompeting other phytoplankton functional groups when dissolved silica is available due to their faster maximum photosynthetic rates and reduced palatability to grazers. Adding a diatom functional group provides the cGEnIE Earth system model with an extended capability to explore ecological dynamics and their influence on ocean biogeochemistry.

Wavetrisk-2.1: an adaptive dynamical core for ocean modelling

Abstract. This paper introduces wavetrisk-2.1 (i.e. wavetrisk-ocean), an incompressible version of the atmosphere model wavetrisk-1.x with free surface. This new model is built on the same wavelet-based dynamically adaptive core as wavetrisk, which itself uses dynamico's mimetic vector-invariant multilayer rotating shallow water formulation. Both codes use a Lagrangian vertical coordinate with conservative remapping. The ocean variant solves the incompressible multilayer shallow water equations with inhomogeneous density layers. Time integration uses barotropic–baroclinic mode splitting via an semi-implicit free surface formulation, which is about 34–44 times faster than an unsplit explicit time-stepping. The barotropic and baroclinic estimates of the free surface are reconciled at each time step using layer dilation. No slip boundary conditions at coastlines are approximated using volume penalization. The vertical eddy viscosity and diffusivity coefficients are computed from a closure model based on turbulent kinetic energy (TKE). Results are presented for a standard set of ocean model test cases adapted to the sphere (seamount, upwelling and baroclinic turbulence). An innovative feature of wavetrisk-ocean is that it could be coupled easily to the wavetrisk atmosphere model, thus providing a first building block toward an integrated Earth system model using a consistent modelling framework with dynamic mesh adaptivity and mimetic properties.

Investigation of ice cloud modeling capabilities for the irregularly shaped Voronoi ice scattering models in climate simulations

Abstract. Both weather–climate models and ice cloud remote sensing applications need to obtain effective ice crystal scattering (ICS) properties and the parameterization scheme. An irregularly shaped Voronoi ICS model has been suggested to be effective in remote sensing applications for several satellite programs, e.g., Himawari-8, GCOM-C (Global Change Observation Mission–Climate) and EarthCARE (Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer). As continuation work of Letu et al. (2016), an ice cloud optical property parameterization scheme (Voronoi scheme) of the Voronoi ICS model is employed in the Community Integrated Earth System Model (CIESM) to simulate the optical and radiative properties of ice clouds. We utilized the single-scattering properties (extinction efficiency, single-scattering albedo and asymmetry factor) of the Voronoi model from the ultraviolet to the infrared, combined with 14 408 particle size distributions obtained from aircraft measurements to complete the Voronoi scheme. The Voronoi scheme and existing schemes (Fu, Mitchell, Yi and Baum-yang05) are applied to the CIESM to simulate 10-year global cloud radiative effects during 2001–2010. Simulated globally averaged cloud radiative forcings at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) for Voronoi and the other four existing schemes are compared to the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF) product. The results show that the differences in shortwave and longwave globally averaged cloud radiative forcing at the TOA between the Voronoi scheme simulations and EBAF products are 1.1 % and 1.4 %, which are lower than those of the other four schemes. Particularly for regions (from 30∘ S to 30∘ N) where ice clouds occur frequently, the Voronoi scheme provides the closest match with EBAF products compared with the other four existing schemes. The results in this study fully demonstrated the effectiveness of the Voronoi ICS model in the simulation of the radiative properties of ice clouds in the climate model.

Resolving ecological feedbacks on the ocean carbon sink in Earth system models

Abstract. The Earth's oceans are one of the largest sinks in the Earth system for anthropogenic CO2 emissions, acting as a negative feedback on climate change. Earth system models project that climate change will lead to a weakening ocean carbon uptake rate as warm water holds less dissolved CO2 and as biological productivity declines. However, most Earth system models do not incorporate the impact of warming on bacterial remineralisation and rely on simplified representations of plankton ecology that do not resolve the potential impact of climate change on ecosystem structure or elemental stoichiometry. Here, we use a recently developed extension of the cGEnIE (carbon-centric Grid Enabled Integrated Earth system model), ecoGEnIE, featuring a trait-based scheme for plankton ecology (ECOGEM), and also incorporate cGEnIE's temperature-dependent remineralisation (TDR) scheme. This enables evaluation of the impact of both ecological dynamics and temperature-dependent remineralisation on particulate organic carbon (POC) export in response to climate change. We find that including TDR increases cumulative POC export relative to default runs due to increased nutrient recycling (+∼1.3 %), whereas ECOGEM decreases cumulative POC export by enabling a shift to smaller plankton classes (-∼0.9 %). However, interactions with carbonate chemistry cause opposite sign responses for the carbon sink in both cases: TDR leads to a smaller sink relative to default runs (-∼1.0 %), whereas ECOGEM leads to a larger sink (+∼0.2 %). Combining TDR and ECOGEM results in a net strengthening of POC export (+∼0.1 %) and a net reduction in carbon sink (-∼0.7 %) relative to default. These results illustrate the degree to which ecological dynamics and biodiversity modulate the strength of the biological pump, and demonstrate that Earth system models need to incorporate ecological complexity in order to resolve non-linear climate–biosphere feedbacks.

A Major Change in Rate of Climate Niche Envelope Evolution during Hominid History.

SummaryHomo sapiens is the only species alive able to take advantage of its cognitive abilities to inhabit almost all environments on Earth. Humans are able to culturally construct, rather than biologically inherit, their occupied climatic niche to a degree unparalleled within the animal kingdom. Precisely, when hominins acquired such an ability remains unknown, and scholars disagree on the extent to which our ancestors shared this same ability. Here, we settle this issue using fine-grained paleoclimatic data, extensive archaeological data, and phylogenetic comparative methods. Our results indicate that whereas early hominins were forced to live under physiologically suitable climatic conditions, with the emergence of H. heidelbergensis, the Homo climatic niche expanded beyond its natural limits, despite progressive harshening in global climates. This indicates that technological innovations providing effective exploitation of cold and seasonal habitats predated the emergence of Homo sapiens.

MIROC-INTEG-LAND version 1: a global biogeochemical land surface model with human water management, crop growth, and land-use change

Abstract. Future changes in the climate system could have significant impacts on the natural environment and human activities, which in turn affect changes in the climate system. In the interaction between natural and human systems under climate change conditions, land use is one of the elements that play an essential role. On the one hand, future climate change will affect the availability of water and food, which may impact land-use change. On the other hand, human-induced land-use change can affect the climate system through biogeophysical and biogeochemical effects. To investigate these interrelationships, we developed MIROC-INTEG-LAND (MIROC INTEGrated LAND surface model version 1), an integrated model that combines the land surface component of global climate model MIROC (Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate) with water resources, crop production, land ecosystem, and land-use models. The most significant feature of MIROC-INTEG-LAND is that the land surface model that describes the processes of the energy and water balance, human water management, and crop growth incorporates a land use decision-making model based on economic activities. In MIROC-INTEG-LAND, spatially detailed information regarding water resources and crop yields is reflected in the prediction of future land-use change, which cannot be considered in the conventional integrated assessment models. In this paper, we introduce the details and interconnections of the submodels of MIROC-INTEG-LAND, compare historical simulations with observations, and identify various interactions between the submodels. By evaluating the historical simulation, we have confirmed that the model reproduces the observed states well. The future simulations indicate that changes in climate have significant impacts on crop yields, land use, and irrigation water demand. The newly developed MIROC-INTEG-LAND could be combined with atmospheric and ocean models to develop an integrated earth system model to simulate the interactions among coupled natural–human earth system components.

Community Integrated Earth System Model (CIESM): Description and Evaluation

AbstractA team effort to develop a Community Integrated Earth System Model (CIESM) was initiated in China in 2012. The model was based on NCAR Community Earth System Model (Version 1.2.1) with several novel developments and modifications aimed to overcome some persistent systematic biases, such as the double Intertropical Convergence Zone problem and underestimated marine boundary layer clouds. Aerosols' direct and indirect effects are prescribed using the MACv2‐SP approach and data sets. The spin‐up of a 500‐year preindustrial simulation and three historical simulations are described and evaluated. Prominent improvements include alleviated double Intertropical Convergence Zone problem, increased marine boundary layer clouds, and better El Niño Southern Oscillation amplitude and periods. One deficiency of the model is the significantly underestimated Arctic and Antarctic sea ice in warm seasons. The historical warming is about 0.55 °C greater than observations toward 2014. CIESM has an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 5.67 K, mainly resulted from increased positive shortwave cloud feedback. Our efforts on porting and redesigning CIESM for the heterogeneous Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer are also introduced, including some ongoing developments toward a future version of the model.

Initial Land Use/Cover Distribution Substantially Affects Global Carbon and Local Temperature Projections in the Integrated Earth System Model

AbstractInitial land cover distribution varies among Earth system models, an uncertainty in initial conditions that can substantially affect carbon and climate projections. We use the integrated Earth System Model to show that a 3.9 M km2 difference in 2005 global forest area (9–14% of total forest area) generates uncertainties in initial atmospheric CO2 concentration, terrestrial carbon, and local temperature that propagate through a future simulation following the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5. By 2095, the initial 6 ppmv uncertainty range increases to 9 ppmv and the initial 26 PgC uncertainty range in terrestrial carbon increases to 33 PgC. The initial uncertainty range in annual average local temperature of −0.74 to 0.96 °C persists throughout the future simulation, with a seasonal maximum in Dec‐Jan‐Feb. These results highlight the importance of accurately characterizing historical land use and land cover to reduce overall initial condition uncertainty.

PALEO-PGEM v1.0: a statistical emulator of Pliocene–Pleistocene climate

Abstract. We describe the development of the “Paleoclimate PLASIM-GENIE (Planet Simulator–Grid-Enabled Integrated Earth system model) emulator” PALEO-PGEM and its application to derive a downscaled high-resolution spatio-temporal description of the climate of the last 5×106 years. The 5×106-year time frame is interesting for a range of paleo-environmental questions, not least because it encompasses the evolution of humans. However, the choice of time frame was primarily pragmatic; tectonic changes can be neglected to first order, so that it is reasonable to consider climate forcing restricted to the Earth's orbital configuration, ice-sheet state, and the concentration of atmosphere CO2. The approach uses the Gaussian process emulation of the singular value decomposition of ensembles of the intermediate-complexity atmosphere–ocean GCM (general circulation model) PLASIM-GENIE. Spatial fields of bioclimatic variables of surface air temperature (warmest and coolest seasons) and precipitation (wettest and driest seasons) are emulated at 1000-year intervals, driven by time series of scalar boundary-condition forcing (CO2, orbit, and ice volume) and assuming the climate is in quasi-equilibrium. Paleoclimate anomalies at climate model resolution are interpolated onto the observed modern climatology to produce a high-resolution spatio-temporal paleoclimate reconstruction of the Pliocene–Pleistocene.

The Community Integrated Earth System Model (CIESM) from Tsinghua University and its plan for CMIP6 experiments

The Community Integrated Earth System Model (CIESM) from Tsinghua University and its plan for CMIP6 experiments

Characteristics of human-climate feedbacks differ at different radiative forcing levels

Abstract The human and Earth systems are intricately linked: Climate influences agricultural production, renewable energy potential, and water availability, for example, while anthropogenic emissions from industry and land use change alter temperature and precipitation. Such feedbacks have the potential to significantly alter future climate change. These feedbacks may also exert significant changes on 21st-century energy, agriculture, land use and carbon cycle projections, but little is known about their possible magnitudes, or about regional and sector dynamics under different forcing scenarios. Here we use an integrated Earth System Model (ESM) featuring bidirectional information exchange between an economically-oriented integrated assessment model and the ESM to examine how human-natural feedbacks operate under high and medium radiative forcing (RF) scenarios. Specifically, we examine the effect of changing land productivity on human systems, and the effect of changing land use/land cover and CO2 emissions on the Earth system. We find that the effect of coupling differs across radiative forcing levels and across regions, due to differences in the climate signal, human responses to those signals, and regional characteristics. In particular, we find reductions in cropland area due to feedbacks in both the medium and high RF scenarios. In the medium RF scenario, these reductions result in increased area for bioenergy and afforestation and reduced energy system CO2 emissions, as the carbon price in this scenario incentivizes low carbon energy sources and terrestrial carbon storage; these incentives are absent in the high RF scenario. These differences are key to understanding the possible future evolution pathways of the integrated Earth system in response to 21st century climate change. Additional models and hypothesis testing are needed to determine exactly when and how bidirectional feedbacks between human and Earth systems should be considered in future assessments.

On the variable effects of climate change on Pacific salmon

Water temperature has manifold effects on the biology of Pacific salmon. Thermal optima enable Pacific salmon to maximize growth while temperatures above thermal optima can induce stress and lead to mortality. This study investigated the impacts of climatic changes and water management practices on Chinook and Steelhead smolts in the Columbia River Basin using an integrated earth system model and a multiple regression model that incorporated nonlinear survival responses to water temperature. Results revealed that the effects would vary significantly with the species, location, and climate change scenario. Mean survival rates may increase by more than 10% in Upper Columbia River, while reduce by 1˜13% and 2˜35% for Chinook and Steelhead smolts respectively, in the Lower Columbia River by 2080s. This study highlights the importance of integrating the nonlinear response of survival rate to river temperature and water management effects in climate change vulnerability analysis for salmonid stocks.

EcoGEnIE 1.0: plankton ecology in the cGEnIE Earth system model

Abstract. We present an extension to the carbon-centric Grid Enabled Integrated Earth system model (cGEnIE) that explicitly accounts for the growth and interaction of an arbitrary number of plankton species. The new package (ECOGEM) replaces the implicit, flux-based parameterisation of the plankton community currently employed, with explicitly resolved plankton populations and ecological dynamics. In ECOGEM, any number of plankton species, with ecophysiological traits (e.g. growth and grazing rates) assigned according to organism size and functional group (e.g. phytoplankton and zooplankton) can be incorporated at runtime. We illustrate the capability of the marine ecology enabled Earth system model (EcoGEnIE) by comparing results from one configuration of ECOGEM (with eight generic phytoplankton and zooplankton size classes) to climatological and seasonal observations. We find that the new ecological components of the model show reasonable agreement with both global-scale climatological and local-scale seasonal data. We also compare EcoGEnIE results to the existing biogeochemical incarnation of cGEnIE. We find that the resulting global-scale distributions of phosphate, iron, dissolved inorganic carbon, alkalinity, and oxygen are similar for both iterations of the model. A slight deterioration in some fields in EcoGEnIE (relative to the data) is observed, although we make no attempt to re-tune the overall marine cycling of carbon and nutrients here. The increased capabilities of EcoGEnIE in this regard will enable future exploration of the ecological community on much longer timescales than have previously been examined in global ocean ecosystem models and particularly for past climates and global biogeochemical cycles.

Steering operational synergies in terrestrial observation networks: opportunity for advancing Earth system dynamics modelling

Abstract. Advancing our understanding of Earth system dynamics (ESD) depends on the development of models and other analytical tools that apply physical, biological, and chemical data. This ambition to increase understanding and develop models of ESD based on site observations was the stimulus for creating the networks of Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER), Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs), and others. We organized a survey, the results of which identified pressing gaps in data availability from these networks, in particular for the future development and evaluation of models that represent ESD processes, and provide insights for improvement in both data collection and model integration. From this survey overview of data applications in the context of LTER and CZO research, we identified three challenges: (1) widen application of terrestrial observation network data in Earth system modelling, (2) develop integrated Earth system models that incorporate process representation and data of multiple disciplines, and (3) identify complementarity in measured variables and spatial extent, and promoting synergies in the existing observational networks. These challenges lead to perspectives and recommendations for an improved dialogue between the observation networks and the ESD modelling community, including co-location of sites in the existing networks and further formalizing these recommendations among these communities. Developing these synergies will enable cross-site and cross-network comparison and synthesis studies, which will help produce insights around organizing principles, classifications, and general rules of coupling processes with environmental conditions.

Quantifying the Effects of Historical Land Cover Conversion Uncertainty on Global Carbon and Climate Estimates

AbstractPrevious studies have examined land use change as a driver of global change, but the translation of land use change into land cover conversion has been largely unconstrained. Here we quantify the effects of land cover conversion uncertainty on the global carbon and climate system using the integrated Earth System Model. Our experiments use identical land use change data and vary land cover conversions to quantify associated uncertainty in carbon and climate estimates. Land cover conversion uncertainty is large, constitutes a 5 ppmv range in estimated atmospheric CO2 in 2004, and generates carbon uncertainty that is equivalent to 80% of the net effects of CO2 and climate and 124% of the effects of nitrogen deposition during 1850–2004. Additionally, land cover uncertainty generates differences in local surface temperature of over 1°C. We conclude that future studies addressing land use, carbon, and climate need to constrain and reduce land cover conversion uncertainties.

Expanded oxygen minimum zones during the late Paleocene‐early Eocene: Hints from multiproxy comparison and ocean modeling

AbstractAnthropogenic warming could well drive depletion of oceanic oxygen in the future. Important insight into the relationship between deoxygenation and warming can be gleaned from the geological record, but evidence is limited because few ocean oxygenation records are available for past greenhouse climate conditions. We use I/Ca in benthic foraminifera to reconstruct late Paleocene through early Eocene bottom and pore water redox conditions in the South Atlantic and Southern Indian Oceans and compare our results with those derived from Mn speciation and the Ce anomaly in fish teeth. We conclude that waters with lower oxygen concentrations were widespread at intermediate depths (1.5–2 km), whereas bottom waters were more oxygenated at the deepest site, in the Southeast Atlantic Ocean (>3 km). Epifaunal benthic foraminiferal I/Ca values were higher in the late Paleocene, especially at low‐oxygen sites, than at well‐oxygenated modern sites, indicating higher seawater total iodine concentrations in the late Paleocene than today. The proxy‐based bottom water oxygenation pattern agrees with the site‐to‐site O2 gradient as simulated in a comprehensive climate model (Community Climate System Model Version 3), but the simulated absolute dissolved O2 values are low (< ~35 µmol/kg), while higher O2 values (~60–100 µmol/kg) were obtained in an Earth system model (Grid ENabled Integrated Earth system model). Multiproxy data together with improvements in boundary conditions and model parameterization are necessary if the details of past oceanographic oxygenation are to be resolved.

PLASIM–GENIE v1.0: a new intermediate complexity AOGCM

Abstract. We describe the development, tuning and climate of Planet Simulator (PLASIM)–Grid-ENabled Integrated Earth system model (GENIE), a new intermediate complexity Atmosphere–Ocean General Circulation Model (AOGCM), built by coupling the Planet Simulator to the ocean, sea-ice and land-surface components of the GENIE Earth system model. PLASIM–GENIE supersedes GENIE-2, a coupling of GENIE to the Reading Intermediate General Circulation Model (IGCM). The primitive-equation atmosphere includes chaotic, three-dimensional (3-D) motion and interactive radiation and clouds, and dominates the computational load compared to the relatively simpler frictional-geostrophic ocean, which neglects momentum advection. The model is most appropriate for long-timescale or large ensemble studies where numerical efficiency is prioritised, but lack of data necessitates an internally consistent, coupled calculation of both oceanic and atmospheric fields. A 1000-year simulation with PLASIM–GENIE requires approximately 2 weeks on a single node of a 2.1 GHz AMD 6172 CPU. We demonstrate the tractability of PLASIM–GENIE ensembles by deriving a subjective tuning of the model with a 50-member ensemble of 1000-year simulations. The simulated climate is presented considering (i) global fields of seasonal surface air temperature, precipitation, wind, solar and thermal radiation, with comparisons to reanalysis data; (ii) vegetation carbon, soil moisture and aridity index; and (iii) sea surface temperature, salinity and ocean circulation. Considering its resolution, PLASIM–GENIE reproduces the main features of the climate system well and demonstrates usefulness for a wide range of applications.

The integrated Earth system model version 1: formulation and functionality

Abstract. The integrated Earth system model (iESM) has been developed as a new tool for projecting the joint human/climate system. The iESM is based upon coupling an integrated assessment model (IAM) and an Earth system model (ESM) into a common modeling infrastructure. IAMs are the primary tool for describing the human–Earth system, including the sources of global greenhouse gases (GHGs) and short-lived species (SLS), land use and land cover change (LULCC), and other resource-related drivers of anthropogenic climate change. ESMs are the primary scientific tools for examining the physical, chemical, and biogeochemical impacts of human-induced changes to the climate system. The iESM project integrates the economic and human-dimension modeling of an IAM and a fully coupled ESM within a single simulation system while maintaining the separability of each model if needed. Both IAM and ESM codes are developed and used by large communities and have been extensively applied in recent national and international climate assessments. By introducing heretofore-omitted feedbacks between natural and societal drivers, we can improve scientific understanding of the human–Earth system dynamics. Potential applications include studies of the interactions and feedbacks leading to the timing, scale, and geographic distribution of emissions trajectories and other human influences, corresponding climate effects, and the subsequent impacts of a changing climate on human and natural systems. This paper describes the formulation, requirements, implementation, testing, and resulting functionality of the first version of the iESM released to the global climate community.

Modeling the contribution of dissolved organic carbon to carbon sequestration during the last glacial maximum

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is a carbon reservoir that is as large as the atmospheric CO2 pool, and its contribution to the global carbon cycle is gaining attention. As DOC is a dissolved tracer, its distribution can serve to trace the mixing of water masses and the pathways of ocean circulation. Published proxy and model reconstructions have revealed that, during the last glacial maximum (LGM), the pattern of deep ocean circulation differed from that of the modern ocean, whereby additional carbon is assumed to have been sequestered in stratified LGM deep water. The aim of this study is to explore the distribution of DOC and its production/removal rate during the LGM using the Grid ENabled Integrated Earth system model (GENIE). Modeled results reveal that increased salinity of bottom waters in the Southern Ocean is associated with stronger stratification and oxygen depletion. The stratified LGM deep ocean traps more nutrients, resulting in a decrease in the DOC reservoir size that, in turn, causes a negative feedback for carbon sequestration. This finding requires an increase in DOC lifetime to compensate for the negative feedback. The upper limit of DOC lifetime is assumed to be 20,000 years. Modeled results derive an increase (decrease) in DOC reservoir by 100 Pg C leading to an atmospheric CO2 decrease (increase) of 9.1 ppm and a dissolved inorganic carbon δ13C increase (decrease) of 0.06‰. The DOC removal rate is estimated to be 39.5 Tg C year–1 in the deep sea during the LGM. The contribution of DOC to the LGM carbon cycle elucidates potential carbon sink-increasing strategies.