New Directions: Enduring ozone

Ozone damages plants and reduces terrestrial productivity leading to increased anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is an equivalent emission and thus provides an indirect radiative forcing. Through this perturbation of the carbon cycle, anthropogenic increases in ozone affect the climate system on considerably longer timescales than the ozone atmospheric lifetime of only a few weeks. The indirect global warming impact may be irreversible depending upon the uncertain ability of the land carbon sink to reabsorb the carbon dioxide excess after removal of the ozone damage.