Terrestrial carbon histories: Implications for future global carbon cycle dynamics

Conference · Tue Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993 · Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America; (United States)

OSTI ID:5984711

Solomon, A M; Webb, T; Prentice, I C ^[1]

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1. Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis (United States) Brown Univ., Providence, RI (United States) Univ. of Lund (Sweden)

One of the most recalcitrant scientific questions during the past 20 years of research on increasing atmospheric CO[sub 2] is whether (and how much) the earth is a net source or a net sink for carbon now, and, whether (and how much) it will be so in the future. The answer is critical to cleaning international response strategies as well as to predicting biospheric futures with or without effects of political action. Here, we examine the potential value of information available in paleoecological data for defining the role of the terrestrial biosphere in global carbon cycle variations. The data describe histories of carbon in the atmosphere (primarily from stratigrapheric CO[sub 2] concentrations embedded in polar ice caps), above-ground biomass (primarily vegetation reconstructed from fossil pollen data in lacustrine sediments) and soil carbon pools (primarily from soil carbon inventories and landscape histories). After discussing the implications of inferences on the nature of global carbon cycling which are directly obtainable from the data, we evaluate the paleoecological information for formulating and testing predictive models written to describe future carbon cycle dynamics. Finally, we apply one such model to project future dynamics of the terrestrial carbon cycle, and use the obvious uncertainties in the results to define the paleoecological research agenda required for definitive solution of the carbon sequestration question.

• OSTI ID: 5984711
• Report Number(s): CONF-930798--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America; (United States) Journal Volume: 74:2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540120* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
540220 -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
BIOMASS
CARBON CYCLE
CARBON SINKS
CARBON SOURCES
ECOSYSTEMS
ENERGY SOURCES
FORECASTING
GLOBAL ASPECTS
ICE
ICE CAPS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PALEOCLIMATOLOGY
PALEONTOLOGY
PLANTS
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
SINKS
SOILS
TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS