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Originally published in Science Express on 22 May 2003
Science 6 June 2003:
Vol. 300. no. 5625, pp. 1538 - 1542
DOI: 10.1126/science.1083592
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Research Articles

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,5,6 Gerd Folberth,3 Bernhard Schlamadinger,7 Ronald W. A. Hutjes,5 Reinhart Ceulemans,1 E.-Detlef Schulze,2 Riccardo Valentini,8 A. Johannes Dolman9

Most inverse atmospheric models report considerable uptake of carbon dioxide 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 peat soils. Accounting for non–carbon dioxide carbon transfers that are not detected by the atmospheric models and for carbon dioxide fluxes bypassing the ecosystem carbon stocks considerably reduces the gap between the small carbon-stock changes and the larger carbon dioxide uptake estimated by atmospheric models. The remaining difference could be because of missing components in the stock-change approach, as well as the large uncertainty in both methods. With the use of the corrected atmosphere- and land-based estimates as a dual constraint, we estimate a net carbon sink between 135 and 205 teragrams per year in Europe's terrestrial biosphere, the equivalent of 7 to 12% of the 1995 anthropogenic carbon emissions.

1 Department of Biology, Universiteit Antwerpen, B-2160 Antwerpen, Belgium.
2 Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07701 Jena, Germany.
3 Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France.
4 Department of Plant and Soil Science, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3FX, UK.
5 Alterra Green World Research, Wageningen, 6700 AC, Netherlands.
6 European Forest Institute, 80100 Joensuu, Finland.
7 Joanneum Research A-8010 Graz, Austria.
8 Department of Forest Science and Environment, University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy.
9 Department of Geo-Environmental Sciences, Free University Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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

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