Articles | Volume 1, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-1-367-2015
https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-1-367-2015
Original research article
 | 
16 Apr 2015
Original research article |  | 16 Apr 2015

Global distribution of soil organic carbon – Part 2: Certainty of changes related to land use and climate

M. Köchy, A. Don, M. K. van der Molen, and A. Freibauer

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Cited articles

Allison, S. D., Wallenstein, M. D., and Bradford, M. A.: Soil-carbon response to warming dependent on microbial physiology, Nat. Geosci., 3, 336–340, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo846, 2010.
Alo, C. A. and Wang, G.: Potential future changes of the terrestrial ecosystem based on climate projections by eight general circulation models, J. Geophys. Res., 113, G01004, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007JG000528, 2008.
Anisimov, O. A., Shiklomanov, N. I., and Nelson, F. E.: Variability of seasonal thaw depth in permafrost regions: a stochastic modeling approach, Ecol. Model., 153, 217–227, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3800(02)00016-9, 2002.
Armentano, T. V. and Mengeo, E. S.: Patterns of change in the carbon balance of organic soil-wetlands of the temperate zone, J. Ecol., 74, 755–774, 1985.
Brovkin, V., Boysen, L., Arora, V. K., Boisier, J. P., Cadule, P., Chini, L., Claussen, M., Friedlingstein, P., Gayler, V., van den Hurk, B. J. J. M., Hurtt, G. C., Jones, C. D., Kato, E., de Noblet-Ducoudré, N., Pacifico, F., Pongratz, J., and Weiss, M.: Effect of anthropogenic land-use and land-cover changes on climate and land carbon storage in CMIP5 projections for the twenty-first century, J. Climate, 26, 6859–6881, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00623.1, 2013.
Short summary
Using ranges for variables in a model of organic C stocks of the top 1m of soil on a global 0.5° grid, we assessed the (un)certainty of changes in stocks over the next 75 years. Changes are more certain where land-use change strongly affects carbon inputs and where higher temperatures and adequate moisture favour decomposition, e.g. tropical mountain forests. Global stocks will increase by 1% with a certainty of 75% if inputs to the soil increase due to CO₂ fertilization of the vegetation.
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