Abstract
BackgroundCountries have long been making efforts by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to mitigate climate change. In the agreements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, involved countries have committed to reduction targets. However, carbon (C) sink and its involving processes by natural ecosystems remain difficult to quantify.MethodsUsing a transient traceability framework, we estimated country-level land C sink and its causing components by 2050 simulated by 12 Earth System Models involved in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) under RCP8.5.ResultsThe top 20 countries with highest C sink have the potential to sequester 62 Pg C in total, among which, Russia, Canada, USA, China, and Brazil sequester the most. This C sink consists of four components: production-driven change, turnover-driven change, change in instantaneous C storage potential, and interaction between production-driven change and turnover-driven change. The four components account for 49.5%, 28.1%, 14.5%, and 7.9% of the land C sink, respectively.ConclusionThe model-based estimates highlight that land C sink potentially offsets a substantial proportion of greenhouse-gas emissions, especially for countries where net primary production (NPP) likely increases substantially and inherent residence time elongates.
Highlights
Climate change is a big threat to the whole world
Global distribution of land carbon sink The global distribution of land C sink shows that most area on Earth will gain C in terrestrial ecosystems under RCP8.5 by the middle of the twenty-first century (Fig. 2)
For soil C storage simulated by 11 Earth system models (ESM) in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), net primary production (NPP) and soil temperature explain much of the spatial variations in soil C (Todd-Brown et al 2013)
Summary
Climate change is a big threat to the whole world. The global mean surface temperature has increased by 1.0 °C since pre-industrial levels, which is mainly caused by human activities; and the anthropogenic global warming is still ongoing at a speed of 0.2 °C per decade (IPCC 2018). Recognizing the dramatic differences in the impacts and risks for selected natural, managed, and human systems between 1.5 and 2 °C warming, the special report of IPCC (2018), Global Warming of 1.5 °C, has provided different 1.5 °C-consistent emission pathways to limit warming either below 1.5 °C, or returning to 1.5 °C by around 2100 following an overshoot These pathways, as well as those emission reductions in the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, are primarily built upon a rapid phase out of CO2 emissions and deep emission reductions in other GHGs and climate forcers through broad transformations in the energy, industry, transport, buildings, Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land-Use (AFOLU) sectors. Carbon (C) sink and its involving processes by natural ecosystems remain difficult to quantify
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
