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Comparing the influence of net and gross anthropogenic land-use and land-cover changes on the carbon cycle in the MPI-ESM

Stiig Wilkenskjeld,S. Kloster,J. Pongratz,T. Raddatz,C. Reick

Published 2014 in Biogeosciences

ABSTRACT

Global vegetation models traditionally treat an- thropogenic land-use and land-cover changes (LULCCs) only as the changes in vegetation cover seen from one year to the next (net transitions). This approach ignores subgrid- scale processes such as shifting cultivation which do not af- fect the net vegetation distribution but which have an im- pact on the carbon budget. The differences in the carbon stocks feed back on processes like wildfires and desert for- mation. The simulations for the Coupled Model Intercom- parison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) all describe LULCCs using the "Land-Use Harmonization Dataset". Though this dataset describes such subgrid-scale processes (gross transitions), some of the CMIP5 models still use the traditional approach. Using JSBACH/CBALANCE - the land carbon component of the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI- ESM), this study demonstrates how this potentially leads to a severe underestimation of the carbon emissions from LULCCs. Using net transitions lowers the average land-use emissions from 1.44 to 0.90 Pg C yr 1 (38 %) during the his- torical period (1850-2005) - a total lowering by 85 Pg C. The difference between the methods is smaller in the RCP scenar- ios (2006-2100) but in RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 still cumulates to 30-40 Pg C (on average 0.3-0.4 Pg C yr 1 or 13-25 %). In RCP4.5 essentially no difference between the methods is found. Results from models using net transitions are further- more found to be sensitive to model resolution.

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