Ecology Letters publishes NAU study on increased soil greenhouse gases emissions negating soil carbon storage under elevated atmospheric CO2-OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

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Ecology Letters publishes NAU study on increased soil greenhouse gases emissions negating soil carbon storage under elevated atmospheric CO2

Release date: 2018-11-20 Number of clicks:

In May, the journalEcology Letters published research by NAU professor Zou Jianwen and his team at the Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Low Carbon Agriculture & GHGs Mitigation and NAU’s College of Resources & Environmental Sciences.

Their study “Climatic role of terrestrial ecosystem under elevated CO₂: a bottom-up greenhouse gases budget” is, according to the authors, one of the first to provide a comprehensive accounting of greenhouse gas exchanges between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere under elevated CO₂.

To predict the extent elevated atmospheric CO₂ would alter terrestrial ecosystem carbon balance and its feedback to climate change, Zou’s team synthesized 1655 paired measurements after conducting a meta-analysis of data from 169 previously published papers.

The results showed that an elevated CO₂-induced rise in radiative forcing of soil methane and nitrous oxide emissions could negate soil carbon enrichment or reduce mitigation potential of terrestrial net ecosystem productivity by as much as 69%. These results suggest that under elevated levels of CO₂, the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to act as a heat sink to slow climate warming might have been largely offset by its induced increases in source strength of soil greenhouse gases.

Since soils contain the largest pool of terrestrial organic carbon and nitrogen and are one of the major sources of atmospheric methane and nitrous oxide, Zou and his team conclude that the current poor understanding of how soil abiotic and biotic drivers might inﬂuence greenhouse gases response to elevated atmospheric CO₂will limit the ability to predict terrestrial ecosystems feedback to climate change, while a more complete understanding of the net balance of CO₂, methane and nitrous oxide exchange between terrestrial ecosystem and atmosphere under elevated atmospheric CO₂ would help to predict the extent terrestrial ecosystems shape the climate.

A complete conceptual diagram illustrating the effects of elevated CO₂ on soil carbon and nitogen pools as well as greenhouse gases fluxes.