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The size of the land carbon sink in China

Nature volume 603, pages E7–E9 (2022)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 16 March 2022

The Original Article was published on 28 October 2020

arising from J. Wang et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2849-9 (2020)

A substantial part of China’s anthropogenic emissions has been offset by its land carbon sink, which represents an important element in achieving carbon neutrality by 20601. Using newly released atmospheric CO2 measurements and an atmospheric inversion model, Wang et al.2 estimated China’s land carbon sink to be 1.11 ± 0.38 petagrams of carbon per year (Pg C yr−1; positive values indicate net ecosystem carbon uptake) on average for the years 2010–2016, which is at least twice the previous inversion estimates of between 0.18 and 0.51 Pg C yr−1 (refs. 3, 4) (Fig.  1. Here we show that the land carbon sink estimate by Wang et al.2 is overestimated, because it is ecologically implausible and not supported by bottom-up evidence from ground and satellite observations, and the biases of representing Shangri-La site observations in a coarse-resolution transport model could have led to the extremely large inverse estimate. Expanding the current observation network and reconciling top-down and bottom-up estimates are recommended for more robust estimates on China’s land carbon sink.

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Fig. 1: Land–atmosphere CO2 flux over China.
Fig. 2: Representativeness of site Shangri-La in the inversion system.

Data availability

Atmospheric CO2 mole fraction data used in the reference, S0 and S1 inversions were collected from the following databases of atmospheric measurements: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory archive (Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/); the World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases (https://gaw.kishou.go.jp/); the Réseau Atmosphérique de Mesure des Composés à Effet de Serre database (http://www.lsce.ipsl.fr/); the Integrated Carbon Observation System–Atmospheric Thematic Center (https://icos-atc.lsce.ipsl.fr/); the National Institute for Environmental Studies (http://db.cger.nies.go.jp). CO2 mole fraction data used in the S0 and S1 inversions from the Chinese sites were retrieved from https://doi.org/10.17632/w3bwmr6rfg.1. The reference CAMS inversion results are available from https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/cams-global-greenhouse-gas-inversion?tab=form. The results of the high-resolution WRF-Chem simulation for Fig. 2 are available from https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16746667.v1.

Code availability

The CAMS inversion system is available on request from F.C. WRF-Chem V3.9.1 is maintained centrally and made available by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Earth System Research Laboratories/Global Systems Division (https://ruc.noaa.gov/wrf/wrf-chem/).

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (2019QZKK0405), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Basic Science Center for Tibetan Plateau Earth System grant number 41988101 and grant number 42171096, 42001104 and 42101090) and the Regional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes-2 of the Global Carbon Project. F.C. is financially supported by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission. H.T. is financially supported by the US National Science Foundation (grant number 1903722). S.J. is supported by the R&D Program for Oceans and Polar Regions of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT(NRF-2020M1A5A1110493). We thank J. Zhu for discussions on carbon accumulation in domestic wood products.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yilong Wang

  2. Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Xuhui Wang, Kai Wang, Dan Zhu & Yue He

  3. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, LSCE-IPSL (CEA-CNRS-UVSQ), Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Frédéric Chevallier & Jinghui Lian

  4. Suez Group, Tour CB21, Paris, France

    Jinghui Lian

  5. International Center for Climate and Global Change Research, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Hanqin Tian

  6. Biodiversity Research Center, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, China

    Junsheng Li

  7. State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystems, College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

    Jianxiao Zhu

  8. Department of Environmental Planning, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Sujong Jeong

  9. Global Carbon Project, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Josep G. Canadell

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  1. Yilong Wang
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  12. Josep G. Canadell
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Contributions

Y.W. and X.W. designed the study. Y.W., X.W. and D.Z. coordinated the author team. Y.W., X.W., K.W., F.C. and J. Lian performed the analysis. Y.W., X.W. and D.Z. led the writing of the manuscript with contributions from all authors.

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Correspondence to Xuhui Wang or Dan Zhu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Text 1–3, Figs. 1 and 2, Supplementary Table 1 and References.

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Wang, Y., Wang, X., Wang, K. et al. The size of the land carbon sink in China. Nature 603, E7–E9 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04255-y

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