Europe's terrestrial biosphere absorbs 7 to 12% of European anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
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.
Janssens
Ivan A
IA
Department of Biology, Universiteit Antwerpen, B-2160 Antwerpen, Belgium. ijanssen@uia.ua.ac.be
Freibauer
Annette
A
Ciais
Philippe
P
Smith
Pete
P
Nabuurs
Gert-Jan
GJ
Folberth
Gerd
G
Schlamadinger
Bernhard
B
Hutjes
Ronald W A
RW
Ceulemans
Reinhart
R
Schulze
E-Detlef
ED
Valentini
Riccardo
R
Dolman
A Johannes
AJ
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
D012987:Soil; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D002244:Carbon