IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v11y2020i1d10.1038_s41467-020-19208-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A spatial emergent constraint on the sensitivity of soil carbon turnover to global warming

Author

Listed:
  • Rebecca M. Varney

    (University of Exeter)

  • Sarah E. Chadburn

    (University of Exeter)

  • Pierre Friedlingstein

    (University of Exeter
    LMD/IPSL, ENS, PSL Université, École Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Sorbonne Université, CNRS)

  • Eleanor J. Burke

    (Met Office Hadley Centre)

  • Charles D. Koven

    (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

  • Gustaf Hugelius

    (Stockholm University)

  • Peter M. Cox

    (University of Exeter)

Abstract

Carbon cycle feedbacks represent large uncertainties in climate change projections, and the response of soil carbon to climate change contributes the greatest uncertainty to this. Future changes in soil carbon depend on changes in litter and root inputs from plants and especially on reductions in the turnover time of soil carbon (τs) with warming. An approximation to the latter term for the top one metre of soil (ΔCs,τ) can be diagnosed from projections made with the CMIP6 and CMIP5 Earth System Models (ESMs), and is found to span a large range even at 2 °C of global warming (−196 ± 117 PgC). Here, we present a constraint on ΔCs,τ, which makes use of current heterotrophic respiration and the spatial variability of τs inferred from observations. This spatial emergent constraint allows us to halve the uncertainty in ΔCs,τ at 2 °C to −232 ± 52 PgC.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebecca M. Varney & Sarah E. Chadburn & Pierre Friedlingstein & Eleanor J. Burke & Charles D. Koven & Gustaf Hugelius & Peter M. Cox, 2020. "A spatial emergent constraint on the sensitivity of soil carbon turnover to global warming," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19208-8
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19208-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19208-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-19208-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jessica Stubenrauch & Beatrice Garske & Felix Ekardt & Katharina Hagemann, 2022. "European Forest Governance: Status Quo and Optimising Options with Regard to the Paris Climate Target," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-35, April.
    2. Shuai Ren & Tao Wang & Bertrand Guenet & Dan Liu & Yingfang Cao & Jinzhi Ding & Pete Smith & Shilong Piao, 2024. "Projected soil carbon loss with warming in constrained Earth system models," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Callesen, I. & Magnussen, A., 2021. "TransparC2U–A two-pool, pedology oriented forest soil carbon simulation model aimed at user investigations of multiple uncertainties," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 453(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19208-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.