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Published Online May 22, 2003
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1083592

Research Articles

Submitted on February 18, 2003
Accepted on May 6, 2003

Europe's Terrestrial Biosphere Absorbs 7 to 12% of European Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions

Ivan A. Janssens 1*, Annette Freibauer 2, Philippe Ciais 3, Pete Smith 4, Gert-Jan Nabuurs 5, Gerd Folberth 3, Bernhard Schlamadinger 6, Ronald W. A. Hutjes 7, Reinhart Ceulemans 1, E.-Detlef Schulze 8, Riccardo Valentini 9, A. Johannes Dolman 8

1 Department of Biology, Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium.
2 Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
3 Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Paris, France.
4 Department of Plant and Soil Science, University of Aberdeen, UK.
5 Alterra Green World Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands; European Forest Institute, Joenssuu, Finland.
6 Joanneum Research, Graz, Austria.
7 Alterra Green World Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
8 Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
9 Department of Forest Science and Environment, University of Tuscia, Italy.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ijanssen{at}uia.ua.ac.be.

Most inverse atmospheric models report considerable uptake of CO2 in Europe's terrestrial biosphere. In contrast, carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems increase at a much smaller rate, with carbon gains in forests and grassland soils almost being offset by carbon losses from cropland and peatland soils. Accounting for non-CO2 carbon transfers that are not detected by the atmospheric models and for CO2 fluxes bypassing the ecosystem carbon stocks, considerably reduces the gap between the small carbon stock changes and the larger CO2 uptake estimated by atmospheric models. The remaining difference could be due to missing components in the stock change approach, as well as to the large uncertainty in both methods. Using the corrected atmosphere- and land-based estimates as a dual constraint, we estimate a net carbon sink between 135 and 205 Tg a-1 in Europe's terrestrial biosphere, the equivalent of 7-12 % of the 1995 anthropogenic C emissions.


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)