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Soil carbon

Depth of understanding

Earth system models disagree on the fate of soil organic carbon under climate change. Reproducing spatial patterns of the climatological temperature sensitivity of soil carbon is a necessary condition for trustworthy simulations of the carbon-cycle–climate feedback.

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Figure 1: Multiple necessary conditions derived from spatial patterns could progressively constrain the soil-carbon–climate feedback.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Nuno Carvalhais for helpful discussions.

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Correspondence to Bernhard Ahrens.

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Ahrens, B., Reichstein, M. Depth of understanding. Nature Clim Change 7, 762–763 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3426

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