Yuanyuan Huang, Xiaodong Song, Ying-Ping Wang, Josep G Canadell, Yiqi Luo, Philippe Ciais, Anping Chen, Songbai Hong, Yugang Wang, Feng Tao, Wei Li, Yiming Xu, Reza Mirzaeitalarposhti, Heba Elbasiouny, Igor Savin, Dmitry Shchepashchenko, Raphael A Viscarra Rossel, Daniel S Goll, Jinfeng Chang, Benjamin Z Houlton, Huayong Wu, Fei Yang, Xiaoming Feng, Yongzhe Chen, Yu Liu, Shuli Niu, Gan-Lin Zhang
Global estimates of the size, distribution, and vulnerability of soil inorganic carbon (SIC) remain largely unquantified. By compiling 223,593 field-based measurements and developing machine-learning models, we report that global soils store 2305 ± 636 (±1 SD) billion tonnes of carbon as SIC over the top 2-meter depth. Under future scenarios, soil acidification associated with nitrogen additions to terrestrial ecosystems will reduce global SIC (0.3 meters) up to 23 billion tonnes of carbon over the next 30 years, with India and China being the most affected...
April 12, 2024: Science