Land-use change may possibly produce more CO2 than assumed so far

CO2 emissions caused by changes of land use may possibly be higher than assumed so far. This is the outcome of a study coordinated at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), including MPI-BGC scientist Sönke Zaehle. The work presented in Nature Geoscience (DOI: 10.1038/NGEO2882) for the first time considers processes, such as slash-and-burn agriculture or different ways of managing forests and cropland. The results also imply that reforestation is important to increase the ecologically important CO2 uptake by land ecosystems.

Original publication:
A. Arneth, S. Sitch, J. Pongratz, B. D. Stocker, P. Ciais, B. Poulter, A. D. Bayer, A. Bondeau, L. Calle, L. P. Chini, T. Gasser, M. Fader, P. Friedlingstein, E. Kato, W. Li, M. Lindeskog, J. E. M. S. Nabel, T. A. M. Pugh, E. Robertson, N. Viovy, C. Yue and S. Zaehle: Historical carbon dioxide emissions caused by land-use changes are possibly larger than assumed. Nature Geoscience, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/NGEO2882