Global carbon - nitrogen - phosphorus cycle interactions: a key to solving the atmospheric CO2 balance problem

Technical Report · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1984

OSTI ID:5711554

Peterson, B J; Mellillo, J M

If all biotic sinks of atmospheric CO2 reported were added a value of about 0.4 Gt C/yr would be found. For each category, a very high (non-conservative) estimate was used. This still does not provide a sufficient basis for achieving a balance between the sources and sinks of atmospheric CO2. The bulk of the discrepancy lies in a combination of errors in the major terms, the greatest being in a combination of errors in the major terms, the greatest being in the net biotic release and ocean uptake segments, but smaller errors or biases may exist in calculations of the rate of atmospheric CO2 increase and total fossil fuel use as well. The reason why biotic sinks are not capable of balancing the CO2 increase via nutrient-matching in the short-term is apparent from a comparison of the stoichiometry of the sources and sinks. The burning of fossil fuels and forest biomass releases much more CO2-carbon than is sequestered as organic carbon.

• Research Organization: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5711554
• Report Number(s): N-85-14188
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500200* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR POLLUTION
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON CYCLE
CARBON DIOXIDE
CARBON OXIDES
CHALCOGENIDES
ELEMENTS
ENERGY SOURCES
FORESTS
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
GLOBAL ASPECTS
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
MINERAL CYCLING
NONMETALS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PHOSPHORUS
POLLUTION
SINKS