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Recent divergence in the contributions of tropical and boreal forests to the terrestrial carbon sink

Tagesson, Torbern LU ; Schurgers, Guy LU ; Horion, Stéphanie ; Ciais, Philippe ; Tian, Feng LU ; Brandt, Martin ; Ahlström, Anders LU orcid ; Wigneron, Jean Pierre ; Ardö, Jonas LU orcid and Olin, Stefan LU , et al. (2020) In Nature Ecology and Evolution 4. p.202-209
Abstract

Anthropogenic land use and land cover changes (LULCC) have a large impact on the global terrestrial carbon sink, but this effect is not well characterized according to biogeographical region. Here, using state-of-the-art Earth observation data and a dynamic global vegetation model, we estimate the impact of LULCC on the contribution of biomes to the terrestrial carbon sink between 1992 and 2015. Tropical and boreal forests contributed equally, and with the largest share of the mean global terrestrial carbon sink. CO2 fertilization was found to be the main driver increasing the terrestrial carbon sink from 1992 to 2015, but the net effect of all drivers (CO2 fertilization and nitrogen deposition, LULCC and... (More)

Anthropogenic land use and land cover changes (LULCC) have a large impact on the global terrestrial carbon sink, but this effect is not well characterized according to biogeographical region. Here, using state-of-the-art Earth observation data and a dynamic global vegetation model, we estimate the impact of LULCC on the contribution of biomes to the terrestrial carbon sink between 1992 and 2015. Tropical and boreal forests contributed equally, and with the largest share of the mean global terrestrial carbon sink. CO2 fertilization was found to be the main driver increasing the terrestrial carbon sink from 1992 to 2015, but the net effect of all drivers (CO2 fertilization and nitrogen deposition, LULCC and meteorological forcing) caused a reduction and an increase, respectively, in the terrestrial carbon sink for tropical and boreal forests. These diverging trends were not observed when applying a conventional LULCC dataset, but were also evident in satellite passive microwave estimates of aboveground biomass. These datasets thereby converge on the conclusion that LULCC have had a greater impact on tropical forests than previously estimated, causing an increase and decrease of the contributions of boreal and tropical forests, respectively, to the growing terrestrial carbon sink.

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organization
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type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Nature Ecology and Evolution
volume
4
pages
10 pages
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • scopus:85078470559
  • pmid:31988446
ISSN
2397-334X
DOI
10.1038/s41559-019-1090-0
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
6fdb079b-24c3-4a03-8537-064c34e4d285
date added to LUP
2020-02-06 16:43:42
date last changed
2023-04-10 07:45:58
@article{6fdb079b-24c3-4a03-8537-064c34e4d285,
  abstract     = {{<p>Anthropogenic land use and land cover changes (LULCC) have a large impact on the global terrestrial carbon sink, but this effect is not well characterized according to biogeographical region. Here, using state-of-the-art Earth observation data and a dynamic global vegetation model, we estimate the impact of LULCC on the contribution of biomes to the terrestrial carbon sink between 1992 and 2015. Tropical and boreal forests contributed equally, and with the largest share of the mean global terrestrial carbon sink. CO<sub>2</sub> fertilization was found to be the main driver increasing the terrestrial carbon sink from 1992 to 2015, but the net effect of all drivers (CO<sub>2</sub> fertilization and nitrogen deposition, LULCC and meteorological forcing) caused a reduction and an increase, respectively, in the terrestrial carbon sink for tropical and boreal forests. These diverging trends were not observed when applying a conventional LULCC dataset, but were also evident in satellite passive microwave estimates of aboveground biomass. These datasets thereby converge on the conclusion that LULCC have had a greater impact on tropical forests than previously estimated, causing an increase and decrease of the contributions of boreal and tropical forests, respectively, to the growing terrestrial carbon sink.</p>}},
  author       = {{Tagesson, Torbern and Schurgers, Guy and Horion, Stéphanie and Ciais, Philippe and Tian, Feng and Brandt, Martin and Ahlström, Anders and Wigneron, Jean Pierre and Ardö, Jonas and Olin, Stefan and Fan, Lei and Wu, Zhendong and Fensholt, Rasmus}},
  issn         = {{2397-334X}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{202--209}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Nature Ecology and Evolution}},
  title        = {{Recent divergence in the contributions of tropical and boreal forests to the terrestrial carbon sink}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/86151408/Tagesson_et_al_preversion.pdf}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/s41559-019-1090-0}},
  volume       = {{4}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}