The role of the biosphere in the global carbon cycle: Evaluation through biospheric modeling and atmospheric measurement

Thesis/Dissertation · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:5410933

Lashof, D A

The feedback between CO{sub 2}-induced climatic change and carbon storage in the biosphere is explored by developing a statistical model that predicts potential vegetation as a function of summer and winter temperature and precipitation. The global distribution of ecosystems is constructed based on gridded climate data, prescribed climate change, and the climates simulated by three atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) for 1 {times} CO{sub 2} and 2 {times} CO{sub 2}. Corresponding changes in net primary production, biomass, and soil carbon are calculated. The projected equilibrium change in biospheric carbon storage from a doubling of CO{sub 2} is {minus}60 to +30 petagrams, depending on which GCM is used to drive the biosphere model. Regional and transient effects could be much larger than these values. The atmosphere links the biospheric and oceanic components of the carbon cycle but is more homogeneous than either of these reservoirs. Thus, sufficiently precise measurements of the global oxygen concentration would provide a crucial complement to existing CO{sub 2} measurements by clearly discriminating between biospheric and inorganic carbon sources/sinks while circumventing the heterogeneity of the biosphere. A promising new technique for measuring the concentration of oxygen with a precision of 1 ppm is described. Raman scattering is used to compare non-destructively the O{sub 2}: N{sub 2} ratio of a sample and standard using a patented fiber-optic light mixing scheme that eliminates most systematic errors.

• Research Organization: California Univ., Berkeley, CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5410933
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500200* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
BIOSPHERE
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON CYCLE
CARBON DIOXIDE
CARBON OXIDES
CHALCOGENIDES
CLIMATES
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
ELEMENTS
ENVIRONMENT
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
GLOBAL ASPECTS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MONITORING
NITROGEN
NONMETALS
OXIDES
OXYGEN
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
QUANTITY RATIO
RAMAN SPECTRA
SPECTRA
VARIATIONS