How Well Do We Understand the Land-Ocean-Atmosphere Carbon Cycle?

Type Article
Date 2022-06
Language English
Author(s) Crisp David1, Dolman Han2, 3, Tanhua TosteORCID4, McKinley Galen A.5, Hauck JudithORCID6, Bastos AnaORCID7, Sitch Stephen8, Eggleston Simon9, Aich Valentin9
Affiliation(s) 1 : Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
2 : Royal NIOZ, Texel, The Netherlands
3 : Department of Earth Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
4 : Marine Biogeochemistry, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany,
5 : Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA
6 : Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar und Meeresforschung, Bremerhaven, Germany,
7 : Department of Biogeochemical Integration, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
8 : College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
9 : Global Climate Observing System, World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
Source Reviews Of Geophysics (8755-1209) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2022-06 , Vol. 60 , N. 2 , P. e2021RG000736 (64p.)
DOI 10.1029/2021RG000736
WOS© Times Cited 34
Keyword(s) carbon cycle, carbon stocks, carbon fluxes, anthropogenic emissions
Abstract

Fossil fuel combustion, land use change and other human activities have increased the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) abundance by about 50% since the beginning of the industrial age. The atmospheric CO2 growth rates would have been much larger if natural sinks in the land biosphere and ocean had not removed over half of this anthropogenic CO2. As these CO2 emissions grew, uptake by the ocean increased in response to increases in atmospheric CO2 partial pressure (pCO(2)). On land, gross primary production also increased, but the dynamics of other key aspects of the land carbon cycle varied regionally. Over the past three decades, CO2 uptake by intact tropical humid forests declined, but these changes are offset by increased uptake across mid- and high-latitudes. While there have been substantial improvements in our ability to study the carbon cycle, measurement and modeling gaps still limit our understanding of the processes driving its evolution. Continued ship-based observations combined with expanded deployments of autonomous platforms are needed to quantify ocean-atmosphere fluxes and interior ocean carbon storage on policy-relevant spatial and temporal scales. There is also an urgent need for more comprehensive measurements of stocks, fluxes and atmospheric CO2 in humid tropical forests and across the Arctic and boreal regions, which are experiencing rapid change. Here, we review our understanding of the atmosphere, ocean, and land carbon cycles and their interactions, identify emerging measurement and modeling capabilities and gaps and the need for a sustainable, operational framework to ensure a scientific basis for carbon management.

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How to cite 

Crisp David, Dolman Han, Tanhua Toste, McKinley Galen A., Hauck Judith, Bastos Ana, Sitch Stephen, Eggleston Simon, Aich Valentin (2022). How Well Do We Understand the Land-Ocean-Atmosphere Carbon Cycle? Reviews Of Geophysics, 60(2), e2021RG000736 (64p.). Publisher's official version : https://doi.org/10.1029/2021RG000736 , Open Access version : https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00775/88656/