The response of global carbon storage in soils and net ecosystem production to changes in climate and atmospheric CO[sub 2]

Conference · Wed Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1994 · Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America; (United States)

OSTI ID:7265973

Post, W M; King, A W; Wullschleger, S D ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN (United States)

Globally, soils contain two or three times as much carbon as living biomass. The amount of carbon in soil is determined by two biotic processes - productivity of terrestrial vegetation and decomposition of organic matter. Decomposition processes have strong physical and biological controlling factors. A modified version of the Rothamsted Turnover model was used to evaluate response of soil carbon, globally, to changes in atmospheric CO[sub 2] and climate. Using information on climate and soil texture, computing soil moisture and organic matter inputs, we employed the model at a grid scale of 0.5[degrees] latitude and longitude. With no change in climate, increased litter inputs due to a doubling of atmospheric CO[sub 2] resulted in increases of 11-22% in soil carbon depending on the choice of CO[sub 2] response function. Using current CO[sub 2] concentration, changes in climate from a set of five atmospheric GCMs yield 5-10% decreases in soil carbon despite general increases in litter inputs. Soil carbon increases 6-18% as a result of combined climate and atmospheric CO[sub 2] changes. Our models project changes in total terrestrial ecosystem carbon of 13-24% as a result of the potential global changes. We present maps of these altered global carbon distributions.

• OSTI ID: 7265973
• Report Number(s): CONF-940894--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America; (United States) Journal Volume: 75:2
• 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-)
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON CYCLE
CARBON DIOXIDE
CARBON OXIDES
CARBON SINKS
CHALCOGENIDES
CHEMISTRY
CLIMATIC CHANGE
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
GLOBAL ASPECTS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
SINKS
SOIL CHEMISTRY