PNNL

Abstract

Soil respiration (RS), the flux of CO2 from the soil surface to the atmosphere, comprises the second-largest terrestrial carbon flux, but its dynamics are incompletely understood, and the global flux remains poorly constrained. Ecosystem warming experiments, modelling analyses, and biokinetics all suggest that RS should change with climate. This has been difficult to confirm observationally because of the high spatial variability of RS, inaccessibility of the soil medium, and inability of remote sensing instruments to measure large-scale RS fluxes. Given these constraints, is it possible to discern climate-driven changes in regional or global RS fluxes in the extant four-decade record of RS chamber measurements? Here we use a database of worldwide RS observations, matched with high-resolution historical climate data, to show a previously unknown temporal trend in the RS record after accounting for mean annual climate, leaf area, nitrogen deposition, and changes in CO2 measurement technique. Air temperature anomaly (deviation from the 1961-1990 mean) is significantly and positively correlated with changes in RS fluxes; both temperature and precipitation anomalies exert effects in specific biomes. We estimate that the current (2008) annual global RS flux is 98±12 Pg and has increased 0.1 Pg yr-1 over the last 20 years, implying a global RS temperature response (Q10) of 1.5. An increasing global RS flux does not necessarily constitute a positive feedback loop to the atmosphere; nonetheless, the available data are consistent with an acceleration of the terrestrial carbon cycle in response to global climate change.