Biogeosciences www.biogeosciences.net 1726-4170 1726-4189 7 2 2010 10.5194/bg-7-513-2010 http://www.biogeosciences.net/7/513/2010/ http://www.biogeosciences.net/7/513/2010/bg-7-513-2010.html http://www.biogeosciences.net/7/513/2010/bg-7-513-2010.pdf 513 519 2010-02-08 The African contribution to the global climate-carbon cycle feedback of the 21st century P. Friedlingstein pierre.friedlingstein@lsce.ipsl.fr P. Cadule S. L. Piao P. Ciais S. Sitch IPSL/LSCE, UMR 1572 CEA-CNRS, CEA-Saclay, L'Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France QUEST, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK IPSL, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris, France Department of Ecology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Future climate change will have impact on global and regional terrestrial carbon balances. The fate of African tropical forests over the 21st century has been investigated through global coupled climate carbon cycle model simulations. Under the SRES-A2 socio-economic CO₂ emission scenario of the IPCC, and using the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace coupled ocean-terrestrial carbon cycle and climate model, IPSL-CM4-LOOP, we found that the warming over African ecosystems induces a reduction of net ecosystem productivity, making a 38% contribution to the global climate-carbon cycle positive feedback. Most of this contribution comes from African grasslands, followed by African savannahs, African tropical forest contributing little to the global climate-carbon feedback. However, the vulnerability of the African rainforest ecosystem is quite large. 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