Effect of increasing CO 2 on the terrestrial carbon cycle
Top Cited Papers
Open Access
- 29 December 2014
- journal article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 112 (2), 436-441
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1407302112
Abstract
Feedbacks from the terrestrial carbon cycle significantly affect future climate change. The CO2 concentration dependence of global terrestrial carbon storage is one of the largest and most uncertain feedbacks. Theory predicts the CO2 effect should have a tropical maximum, but a large terrestrial sink has been contradicted by analyses of atmospheric CO2 that do not show large tropical uptake. Our results, however, show significant tropical uptake and, combining tropical and extratropical fluxes, suggest that up to 60% of the present-day terrestrial sink is caused by increasing atmospheric CO2. This conclusion is consistent with a validated subset of atmospheric analyses, but uncertainty remains. Improved model diagnostics and new space-based observations can reduce the uncertainty of tropical and temperate zone carbon flux estimates. This analysis supports a significant feedback to future atmospheric CO2 concentrations from carbon uptake in terrestrial ecosystems caused by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This feedback will have substantial tropical contributions, but the magnitude of future carbon uptake by tropical forests also depends on how they respond to climate change and requires their protection from deforestation.Keywords
This publication has 41 references indexed in Scilit:
- African tropical rainforest net carbon dioxide fluxes in the twentieth centuryPhilosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2013
- Sensitivity of tropical carbon to climate change constrained by carbon dioxide variabilityNature, 2013
- Effects of rising temperatures and [CO 2 ] on the physiology of tropical forest treesPhilosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2008
- New constraints on Northern Hemisphere growing season net fluxGeophysical Research Letters, 2007
- Law Dome CO2, CH4 and N2O ice core records extended to 2000 years BPGeophysical Research Letters, 2006
- Global oceanic and land biotic carbon sinks from the Scripps atmospheric oxygen flask sampling networkTellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 2006
- Transcom 3 inversion intercomparison: Model mean results for the estimation of seasonal carbon sources and sinksGlobal Biogeochemical Cycles, 2004
- Anthropogenic CO 2 Uptake by the Ocean Based on the Global Chlorofluorocarbon Data SetScience, 2003
- Sources and Sinks of Atmospheric CO2Australian Journal of Botany, 1992
- Observational Contrains on the Global Atmospheric Co 2 BudgetScience, 1990