Warm extremes undermine ecosystem carbon sequestration

Researchers have discovered that Earth's terrestrial carbon sequestration capacity has faced challenges during warm extreme occurrences – periods of unusually high temperatures driven by climate change – over the past 40 years, according to a recent research article published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The net ecosystem exchange (NEE), determining the terrestrial carbon sequestration capacity, is strongly controlled by climate change and has shown substantial year-to-year fluctuations, the article noted.

The researchers from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography (XIEG), Chinese Academy of Sciences, cooperated with their domestic and overseas counterparts to study how the increased frequency and intensity of warm extremes affected the NEE variations.

Yuan Xiuliang, a researcher at the XIEG, said that, as the frequency and intensity of high temperatures continue to increase, the proportion of carbon dioxide absorbed by terrestrial ecosystems from human activities may be further unbalanced.

Over the past five years, researchers have been working to achieve more accurate ecosystem carbon sink accounting in order to optimize regional carbon sink regulation.

Achieving accurate carbon sink accounting will help form an effective path for carbon trading, said Luo Geping, another researcher at the XIEG.

In September 2023, China launched a scheme to establish and improve the forestry carbon sink measurement and monitoring system and to form the baseline and methodology for forestry carbon sink accounting.

(Cover: Water levels have plunged to their lowest-ever level amid a drought in Paraguay, September 9, 2024. /CFP)