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Understanding the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle: Sources, Sinks, and Monitoring

This launch event by SAGES focuses on the carbon cycle, with a goal to find new knowledge and understanding to address the increase in greenhouse gases. The event will explore the sources and sinks of carbon, the stability of soil carbon, lateral transport of carbon, and monitoring techniques.

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Understanding the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle: Sources, Sinks, and Monitoring

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  1. SAGES Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment & Society Launch25th May 2007, Royal Society of Edinburgh Theme 2: the carbon cycle John Grace: University of Edinburgh Iain Young: University of Abertay

  2. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Statement of Problem: we see an unprecedented increase in greenhouse gases and these gases cause warming of the planet but we need new knowledge and understanding to find solutions

  3. Atmosphere: +3 Land sink 1-3 1-2 6.5 1-2 6.5 Ocean sink about 2 SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Annual increase 3 Gt

  4. Ocean uptake 1.7  0.5 Fossil fuels, cement 6.4  0.4 Increase in atmospheric CO2 3.2  0.1 Tropical biospheric sink 1.9  1.3 Land use change (mainly tropical deforestation) 1.7  0.8 Temperate and boreal biospheric sink 1.3  0.9 Carbon Budget in the 1990’s(Billions tonnes C y-1; Royal Society Report, 2001) Q1 Where are the carbon sources and sinks?

  5. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Q2 How stable is the soil carbon? UK Perhaps the terrestrial sink will become a source Soil CO2 flux (μmol m-2 s-1) Finland Temperature (degrees Celsius)

  6. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Q3Where are the sources of methane?

  7. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Q4 What are the lateral transports of carbon ?

  8. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Export from land to river to ocean is under-researched

  9. Units: gC/m2/year Roedenbeck et al 2003 SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Q5 Can we monitor the carbon cycle?

  10. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 The SAGES tool-kits

  11. CO2 exchange between land surface and atmosphere- the toolkit Tall tower, Angus Eco-dimona aircraft Earth Observatory Flux sensor physiology Hyperspectral remote sensing of land use Fluxnet

  12. Observe fluxes at large scales models Observe processes at small spatial and temporal scales, what are they, how do they behave? SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2

  13. All terrestrial life depends on it • Soil ecosystem services are valued in excess of £100 Trillion p.a. • We are wasting it • >18% reduction in organic matter in UK since 1985 • 2.2M Tonnes lost to erosion each year in UK • Globally, at current loss rates, there is about 200 years of productive topsoil left Soil: a vulnerable part of the C-cycle: Hard-to-access, teeming with life: more individual organisms in a handful of fertile soil, than the total number of human beings that have ever lived. POST report, July 2006 Env. Agency 2004 report SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2

  14. 1g of soil = c. 20m2 SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 There literally can be billions of individual organisms in a relatively small area. In 1 g of soil we have: c. 10,000 protozoa  7 x 10-6 m2 c. 107 bacteria  4 x 10-6 m2 c. 5 km fungi  1 x 10-4 m2 5.5 x 10-5% of the total space is covered

  15. Toolkit for the soil

  16. Predicting solute and gas flow & retention to within 10%

  17. Prediction of greenhouse gas production in soil

  18. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Where in the world?

  19. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Where in the world?

  20. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Also we’ll work in in our own back-yard • Expect land use will change • Expect climate change impact • Farming and forestry will change: carbon forestry? • Nature conservation issues • Biofuels likely to have a role

  21. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 Some of our Affiliations & sponsors Current projects • NERC-CTCD (soon NCEO) • Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management • International Polar Year • FLUXNET • Forestry Commission/Forest Research • DEFRA • NERC-CEH • Scottish Crops Research Institute • SUERC • NERC-TROBIT • Carboeurope-IP and IMECC • ABACUS • Carbonfusion • FLUXNET • IGBP-AIMES

  22. SAGES Theme 2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Theme 2 The carbon theme is often policy-relevant

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