Abstract
The processes controlling total carbon (C) storage and release from the terrestrial biosphere are still poorly quantified. We conclude from analysis of paleodata and climate-biome model output that terrestrial C exchanges since the last glacial maximum (LGM) were dominated by slow processes of C sequestration in soils, possibly modified by C starvation and reduced water use efficiency of trees during the LGM. Human intrusion into the C cycle was immeasurably small. These processes produced an averaged C sink in the terrestrial biosphere on the order of 0.05 Pg yr-1 during the past 10,000 years.
In contrast, future C cycling will be dominated by human activities, not only from increasing C release with burning of fossil fuels, and but also from indirect effects which increase C storage in the terrestrial biosphere (CO2 fertilization; management of C by technology and afforestation; synchronous early forest succession from widespread cropland abandonment) and decrease C storage in the biosphere (synchronous forest dieback from climatic stress; warming-induced oxidation of soil C; slowed forest succession; unfinished tree life cycles; delayed immigration of trees; increasing agricultural land use). Comparison of the positive and negative C flux processes involved suggests that if the C sequestration processes are important, they likely will be so during the next few decades, gradually being counteracted by the C release processes.
Based only on tabulating known or predicted C flux effects of these processes, we could not determine if the earth will act as a significant C source from dominance by natural C cycle processes, or as a C sink made possible only by excellent earth stewardship in the next 50 to 100 yrs. Our subsequent analysis concentrated on recent estimates of C release from forest replacement by increased agriculture. Those results suggest that future agriculture may produce an additional 0.6 to 1.2 Pg yr-1 loss during the 50 to 100 years to CO2 doubling if the current ratio of farmed to potentially-farmed land is maintained; or a greater loss, up to a maximum of 1.4 to 2.8 Pg yr-1 if all potential agricultural land is farmed.
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Solomon, A.M., Prentice, I.C., Leemans, R., Cramer, W.P. (1993). The Interaction of Climate and Land Use in Future Terrestrial Carbon Storage and Release. In: Wisniewski, J., Sampson, R.N. (eds) Terrestrial Biospheric Carbon Fluxes Quantification of Sinks and Sources of CO2 . Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1982-5_40
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