Demonstration of the Rothamsted Carbon Model

Summary

First developed in the late 1970’s (Jenkinson and Rayner, 1977), the Rothamsted Carbon Model has now been extended to describe the turnover of carbon in a large number of soils under a range of climatic conditions and with different land uses, both managed and natural (Jenkinson et al.,1987). More recently, it has been used to calculate net primary production and organic matter inputs to soil in different ecological zones, and to assess how the amount of CO₂ released from the decomposition of organic matter might change as the climate warms (Jenkinson et al., 1991).