Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): G02011, doi:10.1029/2010JG001393.
Description:
China's terrestrial ecosystems have been recognized as an atmospheric CO2 sink; however, it is uncertain whether this sink can alleviate global warming given the fluxes of CH4 and N2O. In this study, we used a process-based ecosystem model driven by multiple environmental factors to examine the net warming potential resulting from net exchanges of CO2, CH4, and N2O between China's terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere during 1961–2005. In the past 45 years, China's terrestrial ecosystems were found to sequestrate CO2 at a rate of 179.3 Tg C yr−1 with a 95% confidence range of (62.0 Tg C yr−1, 264.9 Tg C yr−1) while emitting CH4 and N2O at rates of 8.3 Tg C yr−1 with a 95% confidence range of (3.3 Tg C yr−1, 12.4 Tg C yr−1) and 0.6 Tg N yr−1 with a 95% confidence range of (0.2 Tg N yr−1, 1.1 Tg N yr−1), respectively. When translated into global warming potential, it is highly possible that China's terrestrial ecosystems mitigated global climate warming at a rate of 96.9 Tg CO2eq yr−1 (1 Tg = 1012 g), substantially varying from a source of 766.8 Tg CO2eq yr−1 in 1997 to a sink of 705.2 Tg CO2eq yr−1 in 2002. The southeast and northeast of China slightly contributed to global climate warming; while the northwest, north, and southwest of China imposed cooling effects on the climate system. Paddy land, followed by natural wetland and dry cropland, was the largest contributor to national warming potential; forest, followed by woodland and grassland, played the most significant role in alleviating climate warming. Our simulated results indicate that CH4 and N2O emissions offset approximately 84.8% of terrestrial CO2 sink in China during 1961–2005. This study suggests that the relieving effects of China's terrestrial ecosystems on climate warming through sequestering CO2 might be gradually offset by increasing N2O emission, in combination with CH4 emission.
Description:
This study has been supported by NASA
LCLUC Program (NNX08AL73G_S01) , NASA IDS Program
(NNG04GM39C), and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology
(MOST) 973 Program (2002CB412500).
Keywords:
Carbon dioxide
;
China
;
Global warming potential
;
Methane
;
Nitrous oxide
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Format:
application/pdf
Format:
text/plain
Format:
application/msword
Permalink
