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| Titel |
How much CO2 is taken up by the European terrestrial biosphere? |
| VerfasserIn |
Maximilian Reuter, Michael Buchwitz, Michael Hilker, Jens Heymann, Heinrich Bovensmann, John Burrows, Sander Houweling, Yi Liu, Ray Nassar, Frédéric Chevallier |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250133802
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-14453.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Europe covers an area of approximately 1.0 ⋅ 1013m2 from the Atlantic to the Urals and is in
large parts covered by active vegetation. This makes its biosphere a potentially important
contributor to the global carbon cycle so that reliable estimates of the European carbon sink
are relevant for climate projections, emission trading, and international climate
negotiations.
The conventional and established methods estimate that 0.40 ± 0.42 GtC/a or less are
absorbed by Europe’s vegetation. These methods rely on in situ measurements of
atmospheric CO2 concentrations on the one hand and on bottom up estimates of surface
carbon fluxes obtained from field measurements on the other hand.
In contrast to this, inversions of atmospheric CO2 concentrations obtained from satellite
near and thermal infrared data indicate that the European carbon sink could be considerably
larger. This hypothesis is supported by a recent estimate of above ground biomass carbon
(ABC) obtained from passive microwave satellite measurements.
In other words, there is currently no consensus on how much CO2 is taken up by the
European terrestrial biosphere and discrepancies between the different estimates are poorly
understood.
We will summarizes and compare estimates of the European carbon sink of various
disciplines published in the peer reviewed literature. As a new aspect, this comparison will
include trends of microwave remotely sensed ABC measurements. Finally, we will outline
future cross-disciplinary efforts that are needed to come to a commonly accepted estimate. |
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