IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v408y2000i6814d10.1038_35048672.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Soil warming and organic carbon content

Author

Listed:
  • Eric A. Davidson

    (Woods Hole Research Center)

  • Susan E. Trumbore

    (Department of Earth System Science University of California)

  • Ronald Amundson

    (University of California)

Abstract

Soils store two or three times more carbon than exists in the atmosphere as CO2, and it is thought that the temperature sensitivity of decomposing organic matter in soil partly determines how much carbon will be transferred to the atmosphere as a result of global warming1. Giardina and Ryan2 have questioned whether turnover times of soil carbon depend on temperature, however, on the basis of experiments involving isotope analysis and laboratory incubation of soils. We believe that their conclusions are undermined by methodological factors and also by their turnover times being estimated on the assumption that soil carbon exists as a single homogeneous pool, which can mask the dynamics of a smaller, temperature-dependent soil-carbon fraction. The real issue about release of carbon from soils to the atmosphere, however, is how temperature, soil water content and other factors interact to influence decomposition of soil organic matter. And, contrary to one interpretation3 of Giardina and Ryan's results, we believe that positive feedback to global warming is still a concern.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric A. Davidson & Susan E. Trumbore & Ronald Amundson, 2000. "Soil warming and organic carbon content," Nature, Nature, vol. 408(6814), pages 789-790, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:408:y:2000:i:6814:d:10.1038_35048672
    DOI: 10.1038/35048672
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/35048672
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/35048672?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Edi Husen & Selly Salma & Fahmuddin Agus, 2014. "Peat emission control by groundwater management and soil amendments: evidence from laboratory experiments," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 821-829, August.
    2. Jaehyun Lee & Youmi Oh & Sang Tae Lee & Yeon Ok Seo & Jeongeun Yun & Yerang Yang & Jinhyun Kim & Qianlai Zhuang & Hojeong Kang, 2023. "Soil organic carbon is a key determinant of CH4 sink in global forest soils," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    3. M. K. Gupta & S. D. Sharma, 2014. "Sequestered Organic Carbon Stock in the Soils under Different Land Uses in Uttarakhand State of India," Journal of Life Sciences Research, Asian Online Journal Publishing Group, vol. 1(1), pages 5-9.
    4. Du Changwen & Zhou Jianmin & Keith W Goyne, 2012. "Organic and Inorganic Carbon in Paddy Soil as Evaluated by Mid-Infrared Photoacoustic Spectroscopy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(8), pages 1-6, August.
    5. Yuanyuan Wang & Zhenghua Hu & A. R. M. Towfiqul Islam & Shutao Chen & Dongyao Shang & Ying Xue, 2019. "Effect of Warming and Elevated O 3 Concentration on CO 2 Emissions in a Wheat-Soybean Rotation Cropland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-19, May.
    6. Pablo Luis Peri & Yamina Micaela Rosas & Brenton Ladd & Santiago Toledo & Romina Gisele Lasagno & Guillermo Martínez Pastur, 2018. "Modelling Soil Carbon Content in South Patagonia and Evaluating Changes According to Climate, Vegetation, Desertification and Grazing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-14, February.
    7. Zhenjie Dong & Lin Hou & Qi Ruan, 2023. "Effect of Elevation Gradient on Carbon Pools in a Juniperus przewalskii Kom. Forest in Qinghai, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-13, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:408:y:2000:i:6814:d:10.1038_35048672. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.