Human civilisation has long benefited from a temperate and hospitable climate. Society has grown and adapted to the contours of what is prescribed by Earth’s climate system. For example, reliable access to clean water requires dramatically different infrastructure in the dessert than the rain forrest. Large public investment in this infrastructure have paid off in large part due to the stability and predictability of Earth’s climate. However, drastic and or abrupt changes could irreversible alter the way we line.
Here, we focus on disentangling how the ocean could to respond to a major climate disturbance. Not only anthropologic emission driven warming, but also the even more abrupt shock of global cooling that could follow a large nuclear war. We leverage Earth system models to determine how marine productivity and carbon storage will change under different climate stressors, and more broadly, whether the ocean will help mitigate or amplify the adverse effects.
