Sensitivity of global and regional terrestrial carbon storage to the direct CO2 effect and climate change based on the CMIP5 model intercomparison

PLoS One. 2014 Apr 18;9(4):e95282. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0095282. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Global and regional land carbon storage has been significantly affected by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate change. Based on fully coupled climate-carbon-cycle simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), we investigate sensitivities of land carbon storage to rising atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate change over the world and 21 regions during the 130 years. Overall, the simulations suggest that consistently spatial positive effects of the increasing CO2 concentrations on land carbon storage are expressed with a multi-model averaged value of 1.04 PgC per ppm. The stronger positive values are mainly located in the broad areas of temperate and tropical forest, especially in Amazon basin and western Africa. However, large heterogeneity distributed for sensitivities of land carbon storage to climate change. Climate change causes decrease in land carbon storage in most tropics and the Southern Hemisphere. In these regions, decrease in soil moisture (MRSO) and enhanced drought somewhat contribute to such a decrease accompanied with rising temperature. Conversely, an increase in land carbon storage has been observed in high latitude and altitude regions (e.g., northern Asia and Tibet). The model simulations also suggest that global negative impacts of climate change on land carbon storage are predominantly attributed to decrease in land carbon storage in tropics. Although current warming can lead to an increase in land storage of high latitudes of Northern Hemisphere due to elevated vegetation growth, a risk of exacerbated future climate change may be induced due to release of carbon from tropics.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Carbon / analysis*
  • Carbon Dioxide / chemistry*
  • Climate Change*
  • Models, Theoretical*

Substances

  • Carbon Dioxide
  • Carbon

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41275082 and 41305070), the CAS Strategic Priority Research Program (grant no. XDA05110103), the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-EW-QN208 and 7-122158), the National Basic Research Program of China (grant no. 2010CB950500). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.