We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Accumulation of soil carbon under elevated CO2 unaffected by warming and drought.
- Authors
Dietzen, Christiana; Larsen, Klaus Steenberg; Ambus, Per; Arndal, Marie; Beier, Claus; Reinsch, Sabine; Schmidt, Inger Kappel
- Abstract
Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration (eCO2) and climate change may significantly alter soil carbon (C) dynamics and thus feedback to future climate. However, only very few field experiments world-wide have combined eCO2 with both warming and changes in precipitation in order to study the potential combined effects of changes in these fundamental drivers of carbon cycling in ecosystems. We exposed a temperate heath/grassland to eCO2, warming, and drought, in all combinations for 8 years. Soil C under ambient CO2 remained constant over time, whereas soil C stocks increased by 0.167 kg C m-2 yr-1 on average across all treatment combinations with eCO2 and showed no sign of slowed accumulation over time. Further, the response to eCO2 was not affected by simultaneous exposure to warming and drought. The robust increase in soil C under eCO2 observed here, even when combined with other climate change factors, suggests that there is continued and strong potential for enhanced soil carbon sequestration in some ecosystems to mitigate increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations under future climate conditions. The feedback between land C and climate remains one of the largest sources of uncertainty in future climate projections, yet experimental data under simulated future climate, and especially including combined changes, are still scarce. Globally coordinated and distributed experiments with long-term measurements of changes in soil C in response to the three major climate change-related global changes, eCO2, warming, and changes in precipitation patterns, are therefore urgently needed.
- Subjects
HEATHLANDS; CARBON in soils; CLIMATE change; TUNDRAS; DROUGHTS; CLIMATE feedbacks; CARBON sequestration
- Publication
Geophysical Research Abstracts, 2019, Vol 21, p1
- ISSN
1029-7006
- Publication type
Article