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Lower land-use emissions responsible for increased net land carbon sink during the slow warming period

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Abstract

The terrestrial carbon sink accelerated during 1998–2012, concurrently with the slow warming period, but the mechanisms behind this acceleration are unclear. Here we analyse recent changes in the net land carbon sink (NLS) and its driving factors, using atmospheric inversions and terrestrial carbon models. We show that the linear trend of NLS during 1998–2012 is about 0.17 ± 0.05 Pg C yr−2 , which is three times larger than during 1980–1998 (0.05 ± 0.05 Pg C yr−2). According to terrestrial carbon model simulations, the intensification of the NLS cannot be explained by CO2 fertilization or climate change alone. We therefore use a bookkeeping model to explore the contribution of changes in land-use emissions and find that decreasing land-use emissions are the dominant cause of the intensification of the NLS during the slow warming period. This reduction of land-use emissions is due to both decreased tropical forest area loss and increased afforestation in northern temperate regions. The estimate based on atmospheric inversions shows consistently reduced land-use emissions, whereas another bookkeeping model did not reproduce such changes, probably owing to missing the signal of reduced tropical deforestation. These results highlight the importance of better constraining emissions from land-use change to understand recent trends in land carbon sinks.

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Fig. 1: Anomalies and linear trends of global annual NLS and NPP.
Fig. 2: Change in the trend of NLS, NPP and HR between 1998–2012 and 1980–1998 estimated by DGVMs.
Fig. 3: Linear trend of ELUC and change in ELUC trend between 1998–2012 and 1980–1998.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program (A) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant XDA20050101), the International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant 131C11KYSB20160061), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41530528), and the 111 Project (B14001). We thank the TRENDY modelling group for providing the model simulation data.

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S. Piao designed the study. M.H. and Z.L performed the analysis. S. Piao and Z.L drafted the paper. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results and to the text.

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Correspondence to Shilong Piao.

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Supplementary Tables 1–7, Supplementary Figures 1–14 and Supplementary References.

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Piao, S., Huang, M., Liu, Z. et al. Lower land-use emissions responsible for increased net land carbon sink during the slow warming period. Nature Geosci 11, 739–743 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0204-7

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