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Type: Journal Article
Author(s): Liang Xu; Sassan S. Saatchi; Yan Yang; Yifan Yu; Julia Pongratz; A. Anthony Bloom; Kevin W. Bowman; John Worden; Junjie Liu; Yi Yin; Grant M. Domke; Ronald E. McRoberts; Christopher W. Woodall; Gert-Jan Nabuurs; Sergio de-Miguel; Michael Keller; Nancy Harris; Sean Maxwell; David S. Schimel
Publication Date: 2021

Live woody vegetation is the largest reservoir of biomass carbon, with its restoration considered one of the most effective natural climate solutions. However, terrestrial carbon fluxes remain the largest uncertainty in the global carbon cycle. Here, we develop spatially explicit estimates of carbon stock changes of live woody biomass from 2000 to 2019 using measurements from ground, air, and space. We show that live biomass has removed 4.9 to 5.5 PgC year−1 from the atmosphere, offsetting 4.6 ± 0.1 PgC year−1 of gross emissions from disturbances and adding substantially (0.23 to 0.88 PgC year−1) to the global carbon stocks. Gross emissions and removals in the tropics were four times larger than temperate and boreal ecosystems combined. Although live biomass is responsible for more than 80% of gross terrestrial fluxes, soil, dead organic matter, and lateral transport may play important roles in terrestrial carbon sink.

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Citation: Xu, Liang; Saatchi, Sassan S.; Yang, Yan; Yu, Yifan; Pongratz, Julia; Bloom, A. Anthony; Bowman, Kevin; Worden, John; Liu, Junjie; Yin, Yi; Domke, Grant; McRoberts, Ronald E.; Woodall, Christopher; Nabuurs, Gert-Jan; de-Miguel, Sergio; Keller, Michael; Harris, Nancy; Maxwell, Sean; Schimel, David. 2021. Changes in global terrestrial live biomass over the 21st century. Science Advances 7(27):eabe9829.

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Topics:
Regions:
Alaska    California    Eastern    Great Basin    Hawaii    Northern Rockies    Northwest    Rocky Mountain    Southern    Southwest    International    National
Keywords:
  • biomass carbon
  • carbon emissions
  • carbon flux
  • climate change
  • global carbon budget
  • remote sensing
  • woody biomass
Record Last Modified:
Record Maintained By: FRAMES Staff (https://www.frames.gov/contact)
FRAMES Record Number: 64085