Soil carbon-concentration and carbon-climate feedbacks in CMIP6 Earth system models

Abstract

Achieving climate targets requires mitigation against climate change but also understanding of the response of land and ocean carbon systems. In this context, global soil carbon stocks and their response to environmental changes are key. This paper quantifies the global soil carbon feedbacks due to changes in atmospheric CO2, and the associated climate changes, for Earth system models (ESMs) in CMIP6. A standard approach is used to calculate carbon cycle feedbacks, defined here as soil carbon-concentration (s) and carbon-climate (Δs) feedback parameters, which are also broken down into processes which drive soil carbon change. The sensitivity to CO2 is shown to dominate soil carbon changes at least up to a doubling of atmospheric CO2. However, the sensitivity of soil carbon to climate change is found to become an increasingly important source of uncertainty under higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations.