Changes in the Carbon Content of Terrestrial Biota and Soils between 1860 and 1980: A Net Release of CO"2 to the Atmosphere

Houghton, Richard A.; Hobbie, John E.; Melillo, Jerry M.; Moore, Berrien; Peterson, Bruce J.; Shaver, Gus; Woodwell, George M.

doi:10.2307/1942531

Cited by 843 publications

(501 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…For the year 1700, an area of about 2.6 Mkm 2 of cropland and about 2.8 Mkm 2 of pasture has been estimated, mainly in India, eastern China and Europe. This area is considerably smaller than the estimates of Houghton et al (1983). This difference is, for example, due to the fact that Houghton et al (1983) estimated 0.24 Mkm 2 pasture in Oceania for 1700, which seems very high since the first settlers arrived in Australia and New Zealand only at the end of the eighteenth century.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…This area is considerably smaller than the estimates of Houghton et al (1983). This difference is, for example, due to the fact that Houghton et al (1983) estimated 0.24 Mkm 2 pasture in Oceania for 1700, which seems very high since the first settlers arrived in Australia and New Zealand only at the end of the eighteenth century. For the early nineteenth century it is estimated that large parts of Russia and of the African coastal areas became colonized.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 74%

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The importance of three centuries of land-use change for the global and regional terrestrial carbon cycle

et al. 2009

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Large amounts of carbon (C) have been released into the atmosphere over the past centuries. Less than half of this C stays in the atmosphere. The remainder is taken up by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. Where does the C come from and where and when does this uptake occur? We address these questions by providing new estimates of regional land-use emissions and natural carbon fluxes for the 1700-2000 period, simultaneously considering multiple anthropogenic (e.g. land and energy demand) and biochemical factors in a geographically explicit manner. The observed historical atmospheric CO 2 concentration profile for the 1700 to 2000 period has been reproduced well. The terrestrial natural biosphere has been a major carbon sink, due to changes in climate, atmospheric CO 2 , nitrogen and management. Due to land-use change large amounts of carbon have been emitted into the atmosphere. The net effect was an emission of 35 Pg C into the atmosphere for the 1700 to 2000 period. If land use had remained constant at its distribution in 1700, then the terrestrial C uptake would have increased by 142 Pg C. This overall difference of including or excluding land-use changes (i.e. 177 Pg C) comes to more than half of the historical fossil-fuel related emissions of 308 Pg C. Historically, global land-use emissions were predominantly caused by the expansion of cropland and pasture, while wood harvesting (for timber and fuel wood) only played a minor role. These findings are robust even when changing some of the important drivers like the extent of historical land-use changes. Under varying assumptions, landuse emissions over the past three centuries could have increased up to 20%, but remained significantly lower than from other sources. Combining the regional landuse and natural C fluxes, North America and Europe were net C sources before 1900, but turned into sinks during the twentieth century. Nowadays, these fluxes are a magnitude smaller than energy-and industry-related emissions. Tropical regions were C neutral prior to 1950, but then accelerated deforestation turned these regions into major C sources. The energy-and industry-related emissions are currently increasing in many tropical regions, but are still less than the land-use emissions. Based on the presented relevance of the land-use and natural fluxes for the historical C cycle and the significance of fossil-fuel emissions nowadays, there is a need for an integrated approach for energy, nature and land use in evaluating possible climate change mitigation policies.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 74%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 74%

The importance of three centuries of land-use change for the global and regional terrestrial carbon cycle

et al. 2009

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“…Conversion of land from natural vegetation to agriculture or pasturage releases carbon from vegetation and soils into the atmosphere (Houghton et al, 1983), often quickly through fires, which emit carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), ozone (O 3 )-producing compounds, and aerosols (Randerson et al, 2006). Deforested areas have a diminished capacity to act as a CO 2 sink as atmospheric CO 2 concentrations increase (Arora and Boer, 2010;Strassmann et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential climate forcing of land use and land cover change

2014

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Abstract. Pressure on land resources is expected to increase as global population continues to climb and the world becomes more affluent, swelling the demand for food. Changing climate may exert additional pressures on natural lands as present-day productive regions may shift, or soil quality may degrade, and the recent rise in demand for biofuels increases competition with edible crops for arable land. Given these projected trends there is a need to understand the global climate impacts of land use and land cover change (LULCC). Here we quantify the climate impacts of global LULCC in terms of modifications to the balance between incoming and outgoing radiation at the top of the atmosphere (radiative forcing, RF) that are caused by changes in long-lived and short-lived greenhouse gas concentrations, aerosol effects, and land surface albedo. We attribute historical changes in terrestrial carbon storage, global fire emissions, secondary organic aerosol emissions, and surface albedo to LULCC using simulations with the Community Land Model version 3.5. These LULCC emissions are combined with estimates of agricultural emissions of important trace gases and mineral dust in two sets of Community Atmosphere Model simulations to calculate the RF of changes in atmospheric chemistry and aerosol concentrations attributed to LULCC. With all forcing agents considered together, we show that 40 % (±16 %) of the present-day anthropogenic RF can be attributed to LULCC. Changes in the emission of non-CO 2 greenhouse gases and aerosols from LULCC enhance the total LULCC RF by a factor of 2 to 3 with respect to the LULCC RF from CO 2 alone. This enhancement factor also applies to projected LULCC RF, which we compute for four future scenarios associated with the Representative Concentration Pathways. We attribute total RFs between 0.9 and 1.9 W m −2 to LULCC for the year 2100 (relative to a preindustrial state). To place an upper bound on the potential of LULCC to alter the global radiation budget, we include a fifth scenario in which all arable land is cultivated by 2100. This theoretical extreme case leads to a LULCC RF of 3.9 W m −2 (±0.9 W m −2 ), suggesting that not only energy policy but also land policy is necessary to minimize future increases in RF and associated climate changes.

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“…Several attempts have been made to quantify the emission fluxes, both on regional and global scales, resulting in different ways to assess this issue. Houghton et al [1983] developed an accounting model to analyze the response of terrestrial carbon storage to changes in land use [see also Houghton and Hackler, 1995;Houghton, 1999]. The model tracks the extent of land area, which is affected by land cover changes such as harvest and deforestation, by applying historical clearing estimates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating global land use change over the past 300 years: The HYDE Database

Goldewijk¹

2001

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

878

574

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Abstract. Testing against historical data is an important step for validating integrated models of global environmental change. Owing to long time lags in the climate system, these models should aim the simulation of the land use dynamics for long periods, i.e., spanning decades up to a century. Developing such models requires understanding of past and current trends and is therefore strongly data dependent. For this purpose, a history database of the global environment has been developed: HYDE. This paper describes and analyzes parts of HYDE version 2.0, presenting historical population and land use patterns for the past 300 years. Results suggest, among other things, a global increase of cropland area from 265 million ha in 1700 to 1471 million ha in 1990, while the area of pasture has increased more than six fold from 524 to 3451 million ha. In general, the increase of man-made agricultural land took place at the expense of natural grasslands and to a lesser extent of forests. There are differences between the several regions in the temporal pace of these land use conversions. The temperate/developed regions of Canada, United States, USSR, and Oceania appear to have had their strongest increase during the 19th century, while most of the tropical/developing regions witnessed the largest land use conversions at the end of the last century. Results of this analysis can be used to test integrated models of global change and are available at http://www.rivm.nl/env/int/hyde/.

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Changes in the Carbon Content of Terrestrial Biota and Soils between 1860 and 1980: A Net Release of CO"2 to the Atmosphere

Cited by 843 publications

References 66 publications

The importance of three centuries of land-use change for the global and regional terrestrial carbon cycle

The importance of three centuries of land-use change for the global and regional terrestrial carbon cycle

Potential climate forcing of land use and land cover change

Estimating global land use change over the past 300 years: The HYDE Database

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