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Impact of climate change on grassland production and soil carbon worldwide
Author(s) -
PARTON W.J.,
SCURLOCK J.M.O.,
OJIMA D.S.,
SCHIMEL D.S.,
HALL D.O.
Publication year - 1995
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/j.1365-2486.1995.tb00002.x
Subject(s) - grassland , environmental science , climate change , temperate climate , primary production , steppe , soil carbon , carbon sink , carbon cycle , global change , agroforestry , carbon sequestration , global warming , agronomy , ecosystem , soil water , ecology , carbon dioxide , soil science , biology
The impact of climate change and increasing atmospheric CO 2 was modelled for 31 temperate and tropical grassland sites, using the CENTURY model. Climate change increased net primary production, except in cold desert steppe regions, and CO 2 increased production everywhere. Climate change caused soil carbon to decrease overall, with a loss of 4 Pg from global grasslands after 50 years. Combined climate change and elevated CO 2 increased production and reduced global grassland C losses to 2 Pg, with tropical savannas becoming small sinks for soil C. Detection of statistically significant change in plant production would require a 16% change in measured plant production because of high year to year variability in plant production. Most of the predicted changes in plant production are less than 10%.