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Science 13 October 2000:
Vol. 290. no. 5490, pp. 291 - 296
DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5490.291
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Review

The Global Carbon Cycle: A Test of Our Knowledge of Earth as a System

P. Falkowski,1* R. J. Scholes,2* E. Boyle,3 J. Canadell,4 D. Canfield,5ddagger J. Elser,6ddagger N. Gruber,7ddagger K. Hibbard,8ddagger P. Högberg,9 S. Linder,10ddagger F. T. Mackenzie,11ddagger B. Moore III,8ddagger T. Pedersen,12ddagger Y. Rosenthal,1ddagger S. Seitzinger,1ddagger V. Smetacek,13 W. Steffen14ddagger

Motivated by the rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 due to human activities since the Industrial Revolution, several international scientific research programs have analyzed the role of individual components of the Earth system in the global carbon cycle. Our knowledge of the carbon cycle within the oceans, terrestrial ecosystems, and the atmosphere is sufficiently extensive to permit us to conclude that although natural processes can potentially slow the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2, there is no natural "savior" waiting to assimilate all the anthropogenically produced CO2 in the coming century. Our knowledge is insufficient to describe the interactions between the components of the Earth system and the relationship between the carbon cycle and other biogeochemical and climatological processes. Overcoming this limitation requires a systems approach.

1 Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, 71 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
2 Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Environmental Division, Post Office Box 395, Pretoria 0001, South Africa.
3 Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 42 Carleton Street, Mail Code: E34-258, Cambridge, MA 02142-1324, USA.
4 Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems International Project Office, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Wildlife and Ecology, Post Office Box 284, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2601, Australia.
5 Institute of Biological Sciences, Odense University, 5230 Odense, Denmark.
6 Department of Zoology, Arizona State University, Temple, AZ 85287-1501, USA.
7 Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and Department of Atmospheric Sciences, 5853 Slichter Hall, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-4996, USA.
8 Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, Space, University of New Hampshire, Morse Hall, 39 College Road, Durham, NH 03824, USA.
9 Department of Forest Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, S-901 83 Umea, Sweden.
10 Department for Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Post Office Box 7042, S750 07 Uppsala, Sweden.
11 Department of Oceanography, SOEST, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA.
12 Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada.
13 Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Am Handelshafen 12, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany.
14 IGBP Secretariat, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Box 50005 Lilia Frescativagen 4, S-10405 Stockholm, Sweden.
*   Co-chairs of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) Working Group and lead authors.

ddagger    Members of the IGBP Working Group.

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