
Anders Ahlström
Universitetslektor

Recent divergence in the contributions of tropical and boreal forests to the terrestrial carbon sink
Författare
Summary, in English
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.
Avdelning/ar
- Institutionen för naturgeografi och ekosystemvetenskap
- BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
- MECW: The Middle East in the Contemporary World
- MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system
- Centrum för Mellanösternstudier (CMES)
- eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration
Publiceringsår
2020-02
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
202-209
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Nature Ecology and Evolution
Volym
4
Fulltext
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Nature Publishing Group
Ämne
- Physical Geography
Aktiv
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 2397-334X