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Evidence and attribution of the enhanced land carbon sink

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 4, pages 518–534 (2023)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 07 November 2023

This article has been updated

Abstract

Climate change has been partially mitigated by an increasing net land carbon sink in the terrestrial biosphere; understanding the processes that drive this sink is thus essential for protecting, managing and projecting this important ecosystem service. In this Review, we examine evidence for an enhanced land carbon sink and attribute the observed response to drivers and processes. This sink has doubled from 1.2 ± 0.5 PgC yr−1 in the 1960s to 3.1 ± 0.6 PgC yr−1 in the 2010s. This trend results largely from carbon dioxide fertilization increasing photosynthesis (driving an increase in the annual land carbon sink of >2 PgC globally since 1900), mainly in tropical forest regions, and elevated temperatures reducing cold limitation, mainly at higher latitudes. Continued long-term land carbon sequestration is possible through the end of this century under multiple emissions scenarios, especially if nature-based climate solutions and appropriate ecosystem management are used. A new generation of globally distributed field experiments is needed to improve understanding of future carbon sink potential by measuring belowground carbon release, the response to carbon dioxide enrichment, and long-term shifts in carbon allocation and turnover.

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Fig. 1: Historic enhancement of the land carbon sink and effects on atmospheric CO2.
Fig. 2: Global changes in vegetation cover.
Fig. 3: Changes to the land carbon sink.
Fig. 4: Global and continental carbon flux responses over the twenty-first century.
Fig. 5: Spatial patterns in carbon flux responses to CO2 and climate change.
Fig. 6: Historical and future projections of the land carbon sink.
Fig. 7: Carbon emission mitigation potential on land.

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Data availability

Global Carbon Project data can be accessed at https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/. Data for atmospheric inversion modelling (RECCAP-2) are available at https://climate.esa.int/en/projects/reccap-2. CMIP6 data are available at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip6/. CRU temperature and precipitation data are available at https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/.

Change history

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Acknowledgements

S.R. acknowledges support from NASA FINESST grant No. 80NSSC22K1448 and 80NSSC20K1801. T.F.K. acknowledges support from NASA awards 80NSSC21K1705 and 80NSSC20K1801, the RUBISCO SFA, which is sponsored by the Regional and Global Model Analysis (RGMA) Program in the Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) in the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, and a DOE Early Career Research Program award #DE-SC0021023. T.K.F. and I.C.P. acknowledge funding from the LEMONTREE (Land Ecosystem Models based On New Theory, obseRvations and ExperimEnts) project, funded through the generosity of Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Futures programme. I.C.P. also acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No: 787203 REALM). X.L. acknowledges funding from NASA FINESST #80NSSC21K1602. J.G.C. thanks the support of the Australian National Environmental Science Program — Climate Systems Hub. A.B. was funded by the European Union (ERC StG, ForExD, grant agreement no. 101039567). Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the ERC; neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible. C.A.W. acknowledges support from NASA Carbon Monitoring System grants NNX16AQ25G and NN14AR39G, and C.A.W. and Y.Z. acknowledge support from NASA EVS-2 ACT-America grant NNX16AN17G. Y.Z. acknowledges partial support from the NSF for Long-Term Ecological Research (DEB 1655499) and support from Schmidt Future via the Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship to Cornell University. We thank the TRENDY model teams for providing output from scenario simulations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Sophie Ruehr, Trevor F. Keenan & Xinchen Lu

  2. Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Sophie Ruehr, Trevor F. Keenan & Xinchen Lu

  3. Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA

    Christopher Williams & Yu Zhou

  4. School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Yu Zhou

  5. Department Biogeochemical Integration, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

    Ana Bastos

  6. CSIRO Environment, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Josep G. Canadell

  7. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, UK

    Iain Colin Prentice

  8. Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Iain Colin Prentice

  9. College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Stephen Sitch

  10. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    César Terrer

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Contributions

T.F.K. and C.W. conceived of the review and wrote the first draft. S.R. developed the manuscript with input from T.F.K. and C.W. S.R. generated the figures. Y.Z. and X.L. contributed figure data. A.B., J.G.C., I.C.P., S.S. and C.T. contributed to writing and made substantial contributions to the discussion of content.

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Correspondence to Sophie Ruehr or Trevor F. Keenan.

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Nature Reviews Earth & Environment thanks Mark Adams, Xu Lian and Torbern Tagesson for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Glossary

Airborne fraction

The long-term fate of anthropogenic CO2 emissions that remain in the atmosphere (not taken up by the land or oceanic sinks).

Carbon fluxes

The quantity of carbon exchanged between carbon stocks (on land or in the ocean) and the atmosphere over a specific area and time period. Here, carbon flux is positive when uptake occurs in the land or ocean carbon sinks.

CO2 atmospheric growth rate

The difference in atmospheric CO2 concentration between the start and end of each year, representing the sum of all CO2 fluxes into and out of the atmosphere by both natural and human processes.

CO2 fertilization

The stimulation of both photosynthetic light and water-use efficiency by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the response to which can be an increase in photosynthesis and/or a decrease in leaf-level water use.

Land carbon sink

This term is used when applicable to both the net and natural land carbon sinks.

Natural land carbon sink

Net carbon sequestered by terrestrial ecosystems independent of direct anthropogenic interventions such as land use and land-use change (or net primary productivity minus heterotrophic respiration and other natural carbon losses to the atmosphere such as fire, volatile organic compounds and others).

Net biome productivity

Net ecosystem exchange over a large spatial and temporal extent, including disturbance and management effects.

Net ecosystem exchange

Gross primary productivity minus ecosystem respiration. This quantity can be positive or negative.

Net land carbon sink

The balance of carbon leaving and entering the terrestrial biosphere through all pathways.

Residual land sink

The calculated global land carbon sink after accounting for atmospheric growth rate, ocean sink and emissions from land-use change.

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Ruehr, S., Keenan, T.F., Williams, C. et al. Evidence and attribution of the enhanced land carbon sink. Nat Rev Earth Environ 4, 518–534 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00456-3

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