Abstract
Ecosystem services associated with the global carbon (C) cycle must be assessed in the context of an Earth System that has been greatly modified by human activities, the ensuing great challenges of sustainability and wellbeing, and the generic role of ecosystem services in meeting these challenges. Given this broad context, a brief survey of the carbon-climate system highlights three features. First, total anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (the sum of emissions from fossil fuel combustion, other industrial processes and net land use change) have grown nearly (but not exactly) exponentially over the two centuries since the onset of industrialisation, at an average growth rate of 1.9 % year−1 over the period 1850–2010, to reach 10 Pg C year−1 in 2010. Second, and consequently, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen steeply since 1800, from a nearly steady level of about 278 to 389 ppm in 2010, increasing at 2 ppm year−1 (2001–2010 average). Third, less than half of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, the rest being removed by land and ocean CO2 sinks. The fraction remaining in the atmosphere, the CO2 airborne fraction has been close to (but not exactly) constant over the period 1959–2010, at around 45 %, indicating that the global C cycle has a high self-regulating capacity. Given these features, the global C cycle supports two groups of ecosystem services: (1) services that protect the Earth System against carbon-climate vulnerabilities or reinforcing feedbacks that would accelerate climate change; and (2) services provided by C sequestration in the terrestrial biosphere, to contribute to mitigating climate change. All ecosystem services associated with the global C cycle have implications for safeguarding the “carbon cycle commons”, the globally shared, self-regulating functions of the C cycle. The services provided by the carbon cycle commons to humanity are only partly in the form of direct benefits. They are also in the form of protection against vulnerabilities, or risks of potential changes in Earth System functioning that would be harmful to human wellbeing.
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Notes
- 1.
In the carbon cycle community, carbon stocks are usually expressed in carbon mass units as Pg C and fluxes in Pg C year−1, because carbon shifts between multiple chemical forms (coal, oil, biomass, CO2 and others). Here 1 Pg C = 1 petagram = 1015 g of carbon.
Abbreviations
- AF:
-
Airborne fraction (of CO2)
- BC:
-
Black carbon
- CDR:
-
Carbon dioxide removal
- ENSO:
-
El Niño-Southern Oscillation
- FFI:
-
Fossil fuel and other industrial processes
- GDP:
-
Gross domestic product
- GHG:
-
Greenhouse gas
- LUC:
-
Land use change
- MEA:
-
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
- RCP:
-
Representative concentration pathway
- SF:
-
Sink fraction (of CO2)
- SIC:
-
Soil inorganic carbon
- SOC:
-
Soil organic carbon
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Acknowledgments
Some material in this chapter is adapted from previous papers and chapters by the author, with colleagues. In particular, material in Sect. 8.2 is adapted from Raupach et al. (2013), and material on vulnerabilities (Sect. 8.3) is derived from Raupach et al. (2011). The participation and influence of the colleagues appearing as coauthors in these papers and chapters is gratefully acknowledged.
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Raupach, M.R. (2013). Ecosystem Services and the Global Carbon Cycle. In: Lal, R., Lorenz, K., Hüttl, R., Schneider, B., von Braun, J. (eds) Ecosystem Services and Carbon Sequestration in the Biosphere. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6455-2_8
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