Past exam of the physics of atmospheres and oceans course of the University of Oxford / 2022 / 5 / b / Solution

For the linear three-reservoir carbon model, with concentrations as a column vector, the linear ordinary differential equation isA homogeneous normal mode has $\mathbf{x}=\mathbf{v}{e}^{\lambda t}$, where $J\mathbf{v}=\lambda \mathbf{v}$. For negative real eigenvalues the e-folding relaxation time is $\tau =-1/\lambda$. The row sums vanish, so ${\mathbf{v}}_3=(1,1,1{)}^T$ has ${\lambda }_3=0$ andEqual effective concentrations generate no exchange. Summing the reservoir budgets givesThus injected carbon dioxide is conserved after emissions cease: the model redistributes it but contains no permanent removal. The zero normal mode records this conserved excess mass, rather than a long but finite decay.

To check the other normal modes are damped, set $D=\mathrm{diag}(R_a,R_b,R_d)$ and $L=-DJ$. ThenThe similarity transformation $D^{1/2}J{D}^{-1/2}=-D^{-1/2}L{D}^{-1/2}$ is a symmetric negative-semidefinite matrix with a one-dimensional kernel, so the remaining two eigenvalues are strictly negative.