Large Igneous Provinces and Global Carbon Cycle Feedbacks

The magnitude of future climate change depends on further anthropogenic carbon emissions, but also on feedbacks between Earth's natural carbon reservoirs and the changing climate. Collectively, net carbon cycle feedbacks will act to release or sequester carbon and amplify or dampen anthropogenic climate change long into the future. Net carbon cycle feedbacks are uncertain, as many components of the carbon cycle may respond to climate in a nonlinear fashion or even exhibit 'tipping point' behavior. Episodes of Large Igneous Province emplacement can serve as partial geologic analogues to anthropogenic emissions. In this talk, I will present a recent advance in the modeling of time-variable carbon emissions from the North Atlantic Igneous Province (~ 56 Ma).