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The 'long tail' of anthropogenic CO2 decline in the atmosphere and its consequences for post-closure performance assessments for disposal of radioactive wastes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

N. S. Lord ,
A. Ridgwell ,
M. C. Thorne  and
D. J. Lunt
N. S. Lord*
Affiliation:
School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UJ, UK
A. Ridgwell
Affiliation:
School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UJ, UK Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside CA, USA
M. C. Thorne
Affiliation:
Mike Thorne and Associates Limited, Quarry Cottage, Hamsterley, County Durham DL13 3NJ, UK
D. J. Lunt
Affiliation:
School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UJ, UK
*
*E-mail: natalie.lord@bristol.ac.uk
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Abstract

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The extended timescales involved in the decay of radioactive wastes to safe levels mean that geological disposal facilities must continue to function effectively long into the future. It is therefore essential to consider long-term climate evolution in post-closure performance assessments in order to evaluate a geological disposal system's response and robustness to a variety of potential environmental changes, driven by both natural and anthropogenic forcings. In this paper, we illustrate the multiple decay components that characterize the primary driver of climate change – atmospheric CO2 – in response to fossil fuel carbon emissions. We perform a multi-exponential analysis on a series of atmospheric CO2 decay curves predicted by an Earth system model and create an empirical response function that encapsulates the long-term (>1 kyr) removal of excess CO2 from the atmosphere. We present this response function as a simple tool for rapidly projecting the future atmospheric CO2 concentration resulting from any plausible cumulative release of CO2. We discuss the implications of the long 'tail' to this atmospheric CO2 decay curve, both in terms of future climate evolution as well as potential impacts on radioactive waste repositories.

Keywords

carbon cycleclimate changeradioactive waste disposal
Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 79 , Issue 6 , November 2015 , pp. 1613 - 1623
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2015. This is an open access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2015

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