title: Europe's terrestrial biosphere absorbs 7 to 12% of European anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
abstract: Most inverse atmospheric models report considerable uptake of carbon dioxide in Europe's terrestrial biosphere. In contrast, carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems increase at a much smaller rate, with carbon gains in forests and grassland soils almost being offset by carbon losses from cropland and peat soils. Accounting for non-carbon dioxide carbon transfers that are not detected by the atmospheric models and for carbon dioxide fluxes bypassing the ecosystem carbon stocks considerably reduces the gap between the small carbon-stock changes and the larger carbon dioxide uptake estimated by atmospheric models. The remaining difference could be because of missing components in the stock-change approach, as well as the large uncertainty in both methods. With the use of the corrected atmosphere- and land-based estimates as a dual constraint, we estimate a net carbon sink between 135 and 205 teragrams per year in Europe's terrestrial biosphere, the equivalent of 7 to 12% of the 1995 anthropogenic carbon emissions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Universiteit Antwerpen, B-2160 Antwerpen, Belgium. ijanssen@uia.ua.ac.be
authors.forename: Ivan A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Janssens
authors.forename: Annette
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Freibauer
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ciais
authors.forename: Pete
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Gert-Jan
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Nabuurs
authors.forename: Gerd
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Folberth
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schlamadinger
authors.forename: Ronald W A
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Hutjes
authors.forename: Reinhart
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ceulemans
authors.forename: E-Detlef
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Schulze
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Valentini
authors.forename: A Johannes
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Dolman
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D001272:Atmosphere; D018533:Biomass; D002244:Carbon / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000378:metabolism; D002980:Climate; D018556:Crops, Agricultural; D017753:Ecosystem; D005060:Europe; D012987:Soil; D014197:Trees / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D002244:Carbon