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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2025-6405</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Asymmetry in carbon cycle feedbacks and transient climate response under positive and negative CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; emissions</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Chimuka</surname>
<given-names>V. Rachel</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zickfeld</surname>
<given-names>Kirsten</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8866-6541</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Geography Department, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1C1, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>12</day>
<month>01</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>27</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 V. Rachel Chimuka</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2025-6405/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2025-6405/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2025-6405/egusphere-2025-6405.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2025-6405/egusphere-2025-6405.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Most emissions scenarios consistent with limiting warming to well below 2 &amp;deg;C above pre-industrial levels rely on carbon dioxide removal to offset residual positive emissions or achieve net-negative emissions. While carbon cycle and climate metrics are well quantified for positive CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; emissions, applying the same metrics under negative emissions may over- or underestimate the effectiveness of carbon dioxide removal. This study uses an Earth system model to investigate the asymmetry in carbon cycle feedbacks and climate response under positive and negative CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; emissions. To this end, symmetric concentration-driven simulations are initialized from a state at equilibrium with twice the preindustrial CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; concentration and run in biogeochemically coupled, radiatively coupled and fully coupled modes. Our results suggest that land and ocean carbon cycle feedbacks are asymmetric. Compared to their respective magnitudes under positive emissions, the concentration-carbon feedback is larger, whereas, the climate-carbon feedback is smaller under negative emissions. Asymmetries in land carbon cycle feedbacks arise from the saturation of the CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; fertilization effect and asymmetric temperature and soil respiration responses. Asymmetries in ocean carbon cycle feedbacks are driven by non-linear responses to CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; and temperature change, as well as asymmetric ocean circulation responses. Asymmetries in carbon cycle feedbacks propagate onto asymmetry in the Transient Climate Response to Cumulative CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; Emissions: a negative CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; emission results in greater global mean temperature change than a CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; emission of the same magnitude. Our study highlights the need to quantify metrics under negative emissions as reliance on metrics derived from positive emission scenarios may result in inaccurate quantification of the climate response under net negative CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; emissions.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="27"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada</funding-source>
<award-id>182248</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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