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Where is the residual terrestrial carbon sink?
Author(s) -
Houghton Richard A.,
Baccini Alessandro,
Walker Wayne S.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
global change biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.146
H-Index - 255
eISSN - 1365-2486
pISSN - 1354-1013
DOI - 10.1111/gcb.14313
Subject(s) - carbon sink , sink (geography) , tropics , residual , carbon cycle , environmental science , carbon fibers , atmospheric sciences , climatology , climate change , ecology , geography , biology , mathematics , geology , ecosystem , cartography , algorithm , composite number
The apparent accumulation of carbon on land necessary to balance the global carbon budget has perplexed scientists since the first carbon budgets were constructed more than 40 years ago. The magnitude of the sink over the decade 2006–2015 averaged 3.1 ± 0.9 PgC/year, but neither the factors causing it nor its location are known. Here, based on results from a recent analysis by Baccini et al. ([Baccini, A., 2017]), we estimate that about a third (1.0 PgC/year) of the residual sink is in the tropics, and about two‐thirds is outside the tropics (2.1 PgC/year).