A restructured and updated global soil respiration database (SRDB-V5)

Jinshi Jian,Emma Stell,Kristina Anderson-Teixeira,Rebecca Marchesi,Ben Bond-Lamberty,Darlin Paredes,Nazar Kholod,Mercedes Horn,Jason Manzon,Valentine Herrmann,Rodrigo Vargas

doi:10.5194/essd-13-255-2021

Abstract

Abstract. Field-measured soil respiration (RS, the soil-to-atmosphere CO2 flux) observations were compiled into a global soil respiration database (SRDB) a decade ago, a resource that has been widely used by the biogeochemistry community to advance our understanding of RS dynamics. Novel carbon cycle science questions require updated and augmented global information with better interoperability among datasets. Here, we restructured and updated the global RS database to version SRDB-V5. The updated version has all previous fields revised for consistency and simplicity, and it has several new fields to include ancillary information (e.g., RS measurement time, collar insertion depth, collar area). The new SRDB-V5 includes published papers through 2017 (800 independent studies), where total observations increased from 6633 in SRDB-V4 to 10 366 in SRDB-V5. The SRDB-V5 features more RS data published in the Russian and Chinese scientific literature and has an improved global spatio-temporal coverage and improved global climate space representation. We also restructured the database so that it has stronger interoperability with other datasets related to carbon cycle science. For instance, linking SRDB-V5 with an hourly timescale global soil respiration database (HGRsD) and a community database for continuous soil respiration (COSORE) enables researchers to explore new questions. The updated SRDB-V5 aims to be a data framework for the scientific community to share seasonal to annual field RS measurements, and it provides opportunities for the biogeochemistry community to better understand the spatial and temporal variability in RS, its components, and the overall carbon cycle. The database can be downloaded at https://github.com/bpbond/srdb and will be made available in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC). All data and code to reproduce the results in this study can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3876443 (Jian and Bond-Lamberty, 2020).

Highlights

Soil respiration (RS), the soil-surface-to-atmosphere CO2 flux, is one of the largest carbon fluxes between the terrestrial land surface and atmosphere (Luo and Zhou, 2010)
The number of records of soil respiration database (SRDB)-V5 is much larger compared with older versions
Estimated global RS ranged from 68–101 Pg C yr−1, with many uncertainties associated with measurements and propagation of errors evident when upscaling site-specific RS measurements to regional and global scales (Bond-Lamberty and Thomson, 2010b; Jian et al, 2018a, b; Raich et al, 2002; Raich and Potter, 1995; Raich and Schlesinger, 1992; Warner et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

Soil respiration (RS), the soil-surface-to-atmosphere CO2 flux, is one of the largest carbon fluxes between the terrestrial land surface and atmosphere (Luo and Zhou, 2010). Soils hold a large amount (> 2000 Pg C to 1 m depth) of carbon, more than the total carbon stock in the atmosphere and aboveground plants (Batjes, 2016; Tarnocai et al, 2009). Its C efflux to the atmosphere has major implications for our understanding of ecosystem- to global-scale biogeochemical cycling. For better monitoring of soil carbon dynamics as well as to investigate how soil carbon responds to global climate change, it is important to measure RS across different vegetation types and climate conditions. Many field experiments have been conducted in recent decades to measure RS in different climate conditions and vegetation types (Bond-Lamberty and Thomson, 2010b; Davidson et al, 1998; Raich and Potter, 1995). Compiling past RS measurements together into a standardized data framework to support synthesis analysis is very important to advance carbon cycle science

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion