Steinert, N.J., Schwinger, J., Burke, E. et al. (6 more authors) (Cover date: 2026) Permafrost carbon release scales linearly with overshoot warming mediated by AMOC tipping. Nature Communications, 17 (1). 6395. ISSN: 2041-1723
Abstract
Overshooting global warming targets risks irreversible Earth system changes. However, uncertainties remain in how critical Earth system components such as permafrost and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) respond to and interact under warming. By using three climate models of varying complexity to assess the permafrost carbon response under idealized climate mitigation and overshoot scenarios, we here show that permafrost loses 11–21 PgC of carbon per 100 degree-years of warming exposure (cumulative warming over 100 years) during temperature overshoot in a robust linear relationship. This relationship also holds true under relative Northern Hemisphere cooling from a temporary AMOC slowdown during temperature overshoot. This relative cooling partially offsets climate change impacts on permafrost, while in itself causing adverse impacts on climate and society. These results underscore the importance of including both destabilizing and stabilizing Earth system feedbacks when assessing overshoot impacts, critical for informing carbon budgets, net-zero planning, and climate change reversibility.
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| Item Type: | Article |
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| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. |
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | The University of Leeds |
| Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) |
| Date Deposited: | 28 Sep 2026 12:09 |
| Last Modified: | 28 Sep 2026 12:12 |
| Published Version: | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-73612-0 |
| Status: | Published |
| Publisher: | Springer Nature |
| Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-026-73612-0 |
| Related URLs: | |
| Sustainable Development Goals: | |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:245911 |
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