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Carbon burial over the last four millennia is regulated by both climatic and land use change
Author(s) -
Mao Jinhua,
Burdett Heidi L.,
McGill Rona A. R.,
Newton Jason,
Gulliver Pauline,
Kamenos Nicholas A.
Publication year - 2020
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.15021
Subject(s) - climate change , environmental science , carbon sequestration , ecosystem , carbon cycle , carbon fibers , total organic carbon , greenhouse gas , land use, land use change and forestry , drawdown (hydrology) , environmental change , physical geography , land use , ecology , oceanography , geology , carbon dioxide , geography , groundwater , biology , materials science , composite number , composite material , geotechnical engineering , aquifer
Carbon sequestration by sediments and vegetated marine systems contributes to atmospheric carbon drawdown, but little empirical evidence is available to help separate the effects of climate change and other anthropogenic activities on carbon burial over centennial timescales. We used marine sediment organic carbon to determine the role of historic climate variability and human habitation in carbon burial over the past 5,071 years. There was centennial‐scale sensitivity of carbon supply and burial to climatic variability, with Little Ice Age cooling causing an abrupt ecosystem shift and an increase in marine carbon contributions compared to terrestrial carbon. Although land use changes during the late 1800s did not cause marked alteration in average carbon burial, they did lead to marked increases in the spatial variability of carbon burial. Thus, while carbon burial by vegetated systems is expected to increase with projected climate warming over the coming century, ecosystem restructuring caused by abrupt climate change may produce unexpected change in carbon burial whose variability is also modulated by land use change.