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Carbon cycle

Inside the black box

Nature volume 388, pages 522–523 (1997)Cite this article

In an atmosphere in which levels of CO2 are much higher than today, will terrestrial ecosystems accumulate more carbon or will they just process it faster? The answer to this apparently simple question has profound implications for the issue of how far the terrestrial biosphere can mop up carbon emitted to the atmosphere as CO2 from fossil-fuel combustion. On page 576of this issue1, Hungate et al. conclude that, in two grasslands exposed to CO2 at twice the ambient concentration, carbon cycles through the systems faster, but accumulation increases little. Consistent with model projections2, the experimental results indicate that the net increase in carbon uptake observed in the short term probably does not reflect the potential for long-term carbon storage in grasslands.

The experiment was conducted on two different soil types at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in northern California. After three years' exposure to ambient or twice-ambient CO2, the CO2-enriched systems contained significantly more carbon, primarily in roots, detritus (dead plant material) and soil microorganisms. But total soil carbon did not increase.

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Figure 1: The Jasper Ridge CO2 experiment, carried out by Hungate et al.1, showing some of the field chambers on serpentine soil.

References

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  1. Environmental Sciences Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Building 1059, PO Box 2008, Oak Ridge, 37831-6422, Tennessee, USA

    Richard Norby

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  1. Richard Norby
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Norby, R. Inside the black box. Nature 388, 522–523 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/41441

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