scholarly journals Missing sinks, feedbacks, and understanding the role of terrestrial ecosystems in the global carbon balance

1998 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Houghton ◽  
E. A. Davidson ◽  
G. M. Woodwell
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Global Carbon

Exploring the effects of biodiversity and elemental stoichiometry on terrestrial carbon balance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Fernández-Martínez ◽  
Jordi Sardans ◽  
Josep Peñuelas ◽  
Ivan Janssens
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Elemental Composition ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Endogenous Factors ◽  
Ecosystem Carbon ◽  
Elemental Stoichiometry ◽  
Ecosystem Carbon Balance

<p>Global change is affecting the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to sequester carbon. While the effect of climate on ecosystem carbon balance has largely been explored, the role of other potentially important factors that may shift with global change, such as biodiversity and the concentration of nutrients remains elusive. More diverse ecosystems have been shown to be more productive and stable over time and differences in foliar concentrations of N and P are related to large differences in how primary producers function. Here, we used 89 eddy-covariance sites included in the FLUXNET 2015 database, from which we compiled information on climate, species abundance and elemental composition of the main species. With these data, we assessed the relative importance of climate, endogenous factors, biodiversity and community-weighted concentrations of foliar N and P on terrestrial carbon balance. Climate and endogenous factors, such as stand age, are the main determinants of terrestrial C balance and their interannual variability in all types of ecosystems. Elemental stoichiometry, though, played a significant role affecting photosynthesis, an effect that propagates through ecosystem respiration and carbon sequestration. Biodiversity, instead, had a very limited effect on terrestrial carbon balance. We found increased respiration rates and more stable gross primary production with increasing diversity. Our results are the first attempt to investigate the role of biodiversity and the elemental composition of terrestrial ecosystems in ecosystem carbon balance.</p>

scholarly journals Fire and vegetation dynamics in northwest Siberia during the last 60 years based on high-resolution remote sensing

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-228
Author(s):  
Oleg Sizov ◽  
Ekaterina Ezhova ◽  
Petr Tsymbarovich ◽  
Andrey Soromotin ◽  
Nikolay Prihod'ko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Carbon Sink ◽  
Vegetation Types ◽  
Burned Areas ◽  
Northern Areas ◽  
Global Carbon

Abstract. The rapidly warming Arctic undergoes transitions that can influence global carbon balance. One of the key processes is the shift towards vegetation types with higher biomass underlining a stronger carbon sink. The shift is predicted by bioclimatic models based on abiotic climatic factors, but it is not always confirmed with observations. Recent studies highlight the role of disturbances in the shift. Here we use high-resolution remote sensing to study the process of transition from tundra to forest and its connection to wildfires in the 20 000 km2 area in northwest Siberia. Overall, 40 % of the study area was burned during a 60-year period. Three-quarters of the burned areas were dry tundra. About 10 % of the study area experienced two–three fires with an interval of 15–60 years suggesting a shorter fire return interval than that reported earlier for the northern areas of central Siberia (130–350 years). Based on our results, the shift in vegetation (within the 60-year period) occurred in 40 %–85 % of the burned territories. All fire-affected territories were flat; therefore no effect of topography was detected. Oppositely, in the undisturbed areas, a transition of vegetation was observed only in 6 %–15 % of the territories, characterized by steeper topographic slopes. Our results suggest a strong role of disturbances in the tree advance in northwest Siberia.

ROLE OF TERRESTRIAL SEQUESTRATION IN MEETING KYOTO TARGETS

2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 703
Author(s):  
I.R. Noble
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Kyoto Protocol ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Geological Sequestration ◽  
Greenhouse Gasses ◽  
Reduce Emissions ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
Global Carbon

There is strong scientific consensus that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is increasing due to human activities and that this is leading to changes in the Earth’s climate. Fluxes between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere are a significant component of the global carbon cycle and actions to increase net storage in terrestrial ecosystems (often called sinks) will delay the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There is still political debate as to which sinks may be accounted in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. The decisions made will affect the total costs of compliance with the Kyoto Protocol by a factor or two to four. Geological sequestration may also reduce emissions by an amount of the same order as sequestration in terrestrial sinks. Biological and geological sequestration offer a significant opportunity to buy several decades of time to make an efficient transition to technologies and economies that release less greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere from energy production and industrial processes.

scholarly journals Carbon Cycling at the Landscape Scale: The Effect of Changes in Climate and Fire Frequency on Age Distribution, Stand Structure and Net Ecosystem Production

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 55-58
Author(s):  
Daniel Kashian ◽  
Michael Ryan ◽  
Willaim Romme ◽  
Daniel Tinker ◽  
Monica Turner
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Carbon Budget ◽  
Stand Structure ◽  
Age Distribution ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Global Carbon Budget ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Global Carbon

Climate, fire frequency and intensity, and forest structure and development are strongly linked, and predicting potential changes in carbon storage depends on understanding these links. However, we lack the ability to make robust predictions about how changes in climate will alter these interactions and change the carbon balance of a landscape. Forests contain as much as 80% of the total carbon stored aboveground and 40% of that stored belowground in terrestrial ecosystems (Dixon et al. 1994, Harmon 2001). Disturbances such as fires or insect outbreaks - controlled largely by climate - may shift a forested area from a net sink to a net source of carbon to the atmosphere, and increasing the frequency of large disturbances may affect the global carbon budget. Complex interactions among climate, disturbance regimes, and stand-level ecosystem processes, however, preclude predicting the importance of climate change for forest landscapes.

Role of the continental margin in the global carbon balance during the past three centuries

Geology ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred T. Mackenzie ◽  
Abraham Lerman ◽  
Leah May B. Ver
Keyword(s):  
Continental Margin ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Carbon

scholarly journals Missing the forest for the trees: A reappraisal of global seaweed carbon sequestration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Barry Gallagher ◽  
Victor Shelamoff ◽  
Cayne Layton
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Primary Production ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Net Primary Production ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Atmospheric Exchange ◽  
Ecosystem Production ◽  
Global Carbon ◽  
Metabolic Carbon

AbstractCurrently, global seaweed carbon sequestration estimates are taken as the fraction of the net primary production (NPP) exported to the deep ocean. The implication is that export is equivalent to net ecosystem production (NEP), and sequestration is the fraction of export that survives remineralisation. However, this perspective does not account for CO2 production fuelled by the consumption of coastal and terrigenous subsidies. Here we clarify: i) the role of export relative to seaweed NEP for systems closed and open to subsidies; and ii) the importance of subsidies by compiling published estimates of NEP from seaweed-dominated ecosystems; and iii) discuss their impact on the global seaweed carbon balance and other sequestration constraints as a mitigation service. Literature values of seaweed NEP were sparse (n = 18) and highly variable. Nevertheless, the average NEP (−9.2mmol C m-2 day-1 SE ± 11.6) suggested that seaweed ecosystems are more likely to be a global source of CO2. Moreover, the seaweeds’ global carbon balance became overwhelmingly heterotrophic (−40.6mmol C m-2 day-1) after accounting for the consumption of exported material. Critically, however, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions must be assessed relative to their replacements ecosystems or states. We found replacement ecosystems such as shellfish reefs and turfs were notably more heterotrophic than seaweed systems, whilst urchin barrens were only marginally less than their seaweed counterparts; a ranking that appeared to be sustained after their amount of exported production had been remineralised. However, in circumstances where CO2 is supplied independently of organic metabolism and atmospheric exchange (e.g. upwelling and calcification), we caution the sole reliance on NEP or NPP in mitigation assessments. Nevertheless, a complete metabolic carbon balance relative to replacement states will ensure a more accurate mitigation assessment, one that does not exceed the capacity of these ecosystems.

scholarly journals Editorial Summary, Remote Sensing Special Issue “Advances in Remote Sensing for Global Forest Monitoring”

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 597
Author(s):  
Erkki Tomppo ◽  
Guangxing Wang ◽  
Jaan Praks ◽  
Ronald E. McRoberts ◽  
Lars T. Waser
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Forest Monitoring ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Global Carbon

The need for timely, spatially, and thematically accurate information regarding forests is increasing because of the key role of forests in the global carbon balance and sustainable social, economic, ecological, and cultural development [...]

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document