Data · dataset · 2026
A process-model perspective on recent changes in the carbon cycle of North America
Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research
Continental North America has been found to be a carbon (C) sink over recent decades by multiple studies employing a variety of estimation approaches.
Description
However, several key questions and uncertainties remain with these assessments. Here we used results from an ensemble of 19 state-of-the-art dynamic global vegetation models from the TRENDYv9 project to improve these estimates and study the drivers of its interannual variability.
Our results show that North America has been a C sink with a magnitude of 0.37 +/- 0.38 (mean and one standard deviation) PgC year(-1) for the period 2000-2019 (0.31 and 0.44 PgC year(-1) in each decade); split into 0.18 +/- 0.12 PgC year(-1) in Canada (0.15 and 0.20), 0.16 +/- 0.17 in the United States (0.14 and 0.17), 0.02 +/- 0.05 PgC year(-1) in Mexico (0.02 and 0.02) and 0.01 +/- 0.02 in Central America and the Caribbean (0.01 and 0.01).
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About 57% of the new C assimilated by terrestrial ecosystems is allocated into vegetation, 30% into soils, and 13% into litter. Losses of C due to fire account for 41% of the interannual variability of the mean net biome productivity for all North America in the model ensemble. Finally, we show that drought years (e.g., 2002) have the potential to shift the region to a small net C source in the simulations (-0.02 +/- 0.46 PgC year(-1)).
Our results highlight the importance of identifying the major drivers of the interannual variability of the continental-scale land C cycle along with the spatial distribution of local sink-source dynamics.
Links
Get the data
- Publisher page n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7qj7n2k ↗
documentation · download · from data ucar edu
Where it is published
- data.ucar.edu /dataset/a-process-model-perspective-on-recent-changes-in-the-c… ↗
National Center for Atmospheric Research dataset page
landing page · from data ucar edu
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API data.ucar.edu/api/3/action/package_show?id=67d852e0-387c-4a5d-9f0e-7daaeb214… ↗
metadata API · from data ucar edu
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Ocean & Atmospheric Science
Provenance · 1 source records, 7 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | 67d852e0-387c-4a5d-9f0e-7daaeb21400f | 10 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| created_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /notes |
| publication_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 |