Hubau, W, Lewis, SL, Phillips, OL orcid.org/0000-0002-8993-6168 et al. (103 more authors) (2020) Asynchronous carbon sink saturation in African and Amazonian tropical forests. Nature, 579 (7797). pp. 80-87. ISSN 0028-0836
Abstract
Structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Climate-driven vegetation models typically predict that this tropical forest ‘carbon sink’ will continue for decades. Here we assess trends in the carbon sink using 244 structurally intact African tropical forests spanning 11 countries, compare them with 321 published plots from Amazonia and investigate the underlying drivers of the trends. The carbon sink in live aboveground biomass in intact African tropical forests has been stable for the three decades to 2015, at 0.66 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year (95 per cent confidence interval 0.53–0.79), in contrast to the long-term decline in Amazonian forests. Therefore the carbon sink responses of Earth’s two largest expanses of tropical forest have diverged. The difference is largely driven by carbon losses from tree mortality, with no detectable multi-decadal trend in Africa and a long-term increase in Amazonia. Both continents show increasing tree growth, consistent with the expected net effect of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and air temperature. Despite the past stability of the African carbon sink, our most intensively monitored plots suggest a post-2010 increase in carbon losses, delayed compared to Amazonia, indicating asynchronous carbon sink saturation on the two continents. A statistical model including carbon dioxide, temperature, drought and forest dynamics accounts for the observed trends and indicates a long-term future decline in the African sink, whereas the Amazonian sink continues to weaken rapidly. Overall, the uptake of carbon into Earth’s intact tropical forests peaked in the 1990s. Given that the global terrestrial carbon sink is increasing in size, independent observations indicating greater recent carbon uptake into the Northern Hemisphere landmass reinforce our conclusion that the intact tropical forest carbon sink has already peaked. This saturation and ongoing decline of the tropical forest carbon sink has consequences for policies intended to stabilize Earth’s climate.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2020. This is an author produced version of an article published in Nature. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Center for International Forestry Research No External Reference Leverhulme Trust RF/2/RFG/2004/0457 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/B503384/1 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/D01025X/1 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/F005806/1 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/F005806/1 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/I02982X/1 Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation N/A NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/K01644X/1 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/N011570/1 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/N012542/1 European Space Agency 4000123662/18/I-NB EU - European Union EXT 448221 University of Leeds Environmental Trust . NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/D005590/1 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/C51679/1 Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation N/A EU - European Union 283080 USDA Forest Service 11-IJ-11242306-024 EU - European Union 283080 EU - European Union 283080 EU - European Union 283080 Royal Society No External Ref NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/N004655/1 European Space Agency 4000114425/15/NL/FF/gp Royal Society CH160091 NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NER/A/S/2003/00609 EU - European Union 291585 (ERC 2011 ADG) EU - European Union 649087 Royal Society ICA\R1\180100 Met Office DN373701/ BLZ1 EU - European Union 321121 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 10 Mar 2020 14:53 |
Last Modified: | 18 Mar 2021 15:12 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41586-020-2035-0 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:158208 |