Articles | Volume 17, issue 15
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-4075-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-4075-2020
Research article
 | 
13 Aug 2020
Research article |  | 13 Aug 2020

Historical CO2 emissions from land use and land cover change and their uncertainty

Thomas Gasser, Léa Crepin, Yann Quilcaille, Richard A. Houghton, Philippe Ciais, and Michael Obersteiner

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Historical CO2 emissions from land-use and land-cover change and their uncertaint T. Gasser, L. Crepin, Y. Quilcaille, R. A. Houghton, P. Ciais, and M. Obersteiner http://dare.iiasa.ac.at/103/

OSCAR T. Gasser https://github.com/tgasser/OSCAR

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Short summary
We combine several lines of evidence to provide a robust estimate of historical CO2 emissions from land use change. Our novel approach leads to reduced uncertainty and identifies key remaining sources of uncertainty and discrepancy. We also quantify the carbon removal by natural ecosystems that would have occurred if these ecosystems had not been destroyed (mostly via deforestation). Over the last decade, this foregone carbon sink amounted to about 50 % of the actual emissions.
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