| Title: |
Projected Changes in Terrestrial Carbon Storage in Europe under Climate and Land-use Change, 1990-2100
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| Resource Type: |
document --> technical publication --> journal article
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| Country: |
EU Projects
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| Year: |
2007 |
| Availability: |
Ecosystems doi: 10.1007/s10021-007-9028-9
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| Author 1/Producer: |
ATEAM Consortium
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| Other Authors/Producers: |
Zaehle et al.
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| Author / Producer Type: |
EC Project
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| ISSN: |
ISSN: 1435-0629
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EUGRIS Keyword(s): |
Soil-->Soil Overview
Water resources and their management -->Water resources and their management Overview
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| Short description: |
The uptake of carbon by natural vegetation, forests, agricultural land and soils (also known as the 'terrestrial biosphere') is an important part of the
carbon cycle. Terrestrial carbon uptake can lessen the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, thus reducing the impact of these
emissions on the global climate system. Indeed, the terrestrial biosphere in Europe currently acts as a small carbon (C) sink, sequestering annually
up to 12% of European fossil fuel emissions. However, the uptake rate and storage capacity of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere are influenced by
different factors, such as temperature, precipitation, atmospheric CO2 concentration, nitrogen fertilisation by air pollutants, the growth rate of plants,
fires, storms, and land-use changes. Only a few studies have addressed the interaction between future transformations of landscape and climate
changes on the global terrestrial C cycle.
As a part of the EU-funded ATEAM1 project, European researchers have assessed the magnitude of the terrestrial carbon fluxes that can be caused
by changes in land-use and climate in the 21st century in EU15, Norway and Switzerland (hereafter called EU*). This assessment is based on an
advanced version of a global vegetation model that represents actual land-cover as well as land-use changes. The potential future greenhouse gas
emissions and regional land-use changes are based on scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Emission
Scenarios.
The researchers observed that the abandoning of agricultural areas and the subsequent increase in forest areas led to a net carbon uptake in Europe's
terrestrial ecosystems under all the evaluated future pathways of land-use changes between 1990 and 2100. The difference in the magnitude of the
uptake between different scenarios is primarily influenced by the extent that farming has been abandoned. The authors estimated that the cumulative
carbon uptake from the atmosphere into the biosphere between 1990 and 2100 resulting from land-use changes is equivalent to approximately
1.9%-2.9% of the EU* fossil fuel related CO2 emissions.
Furthermore, the cumulative carbon sequestration for the same period associated with climate and atmospheric changes in CO2 concentrations is
equivalent to about 0.7%-3.8% of EU* fossil fuel related CO2 emissions. The authors highlight, however, that the climate and atmospheric CO2
concentration changes will lead to enhanced biospheric uptake rates before 2040, and a weakening of the uptake rate thereafter in all scenarios, thus
turning the European terrestrial biosphere into a net C source for the climate change scenarios that exhibit the strongest warming.
Overall, the results of this study show that land use changes alone have a positive effect on carbon storage, while climate change can counter this
effect. In spite of the uncertainties in the cumulative European terrestrial carbon uptake estimated between 1990 and 2100, these results suggest that
the terrestrial carbon uptake - and its impacts on mitigating climate change - is likely to be small. These results provide new insights into the
processes of carbon sequestration that might be useful in the future when considering a system for accounting for activities in agriculture and forestry
that reduce emissions or increase removal of greenhouse gasses (so-called land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUFC) sector) under the
Kyoto Protocol.
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Submitted By:
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Professor Paul Bardos WhoDoesWhat?
Last update: 13/07/2007
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