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Comparative impact of climatic and nonclimatic factors on global terrestrial carbon and water cycles
Author(s) -
Müller Christoph,
Bondeau Alberte,
LotzeCampen Hermann,
Cramer Wolfgang,
Lucht Wolfgang
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
global biogeochemical cycles
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.512
H-Index - 187
eISSN - 1944-9224
pISSN - 0886-6236
DOI - 10.1029/2006gb002742
Subject(s) - environmental science , primary production , fossil fuel , climate change , carbon cycle , agricultural land , agriculture , global change , land use, land use change and forestry , greenhouse gas , vegetation (pathology) , carbon sequestration , global warming , land use , atmospheric carbon cycle , carbon fibers , atmospheric sciences , ecology , carbon dioxide , ecosystem , geology , biology , medicine , pathology , materials science , composite number , composite material
The coupled global carbon and water cycles are influenced by multiple factors of human activity such as fossil‐fuel emissions and land use change. We used the LPJmL Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) to quantify the potential influences of human demography, diet, and land allocation, and compare these to the effects of fossil‐fuel emissions and corresponding climate change. For this purpose, we generate 12 land use patterns in which these factors are analyzed in a comparative static setting, providing information on their relative importance and the range of potential impacts on the terrestrial carbon and water balance. We show that these aspects of human interference are equally important to climate change and historic fossil‐fuel emissions for global carbon stocks but less important for net primary production (NPP). Demand for agricultural area and thus the magnitude of impacts on the carbon and water cycles are mainly determined by constraints on localizing agricultural production and modulated by total demand for agricultural products.