Understanding the uncertainty in global forest carbon turnover

Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Rademacher, Tim; Shafer, Sarah L.; Steinkamp, Jörg; Barichivich, Jonathan; Beckage, Brian; Haverd, Vanessa; Harper, Anna; Heinke, Jens; Nishina, Kazuya; Rammig, Anja; Sato, Hisashi; Arneth, Almut; Hantson, Stijn; Hickler, Thomas; Kautz, Markus; Quesada, Benjamin; Smith, Benjamin; Thonicke, Kirsten

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-3961-2020

Articles | Volume 17, issue 15

Biogeosciences, 17, 3961–3989, 2020

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-3961-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Biogeosciences, 17, 3961–3989, 2020

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-3961-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 15

Research article 05 Aug 2020

Research article | 05 Aug 2020

Understanding the uncertainty in global forest carbon turnover

Thomas A. M. Pugh et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 05 Aug 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 10 Feb 2020)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Mar 2020
- AC1: 'Response to Reviewer 1', Thomas Pugh, 29 May 2020
RC2: 'Referee comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Apr 2020
- AC2: 'Response to Reviewer 2', Thomas Pugh, 29 May 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (06 Jun 2020) by Alexey V. Eliseev

AR by Thomas Pugh on behalf of the Authors (16 Jun 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (23 Jun 2020) by Alexey V. Eliseev

Short summary

The length of time that carbon remains in forest biomass is one of the largest uncertainties in the global carbon cycle. Estimates from six contemporary models found this time to range from 12.2 to 23.5 years for the global mean for 1985–2014. Future projections do not give consistent results, but 13 model-based hypotheses are identified, along with recommendations for pragmatic steps to test them using existing and novel observations, which would help to reduce large current uncertainty.