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Cited by 313Soil Carbon and Nitrogen DynamicsLand Use and Ecosystem ServicesPasture and Agricultural Systems

Climate warming from managed grasslands cancels the cooling effect of carbon sinks in sparsely grazed and natural grasslands

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Chang, Jinfeng, Ciais, Philippe, Gasser, Thomas, Smith, Pete, Herrero, Mario, Havlík, Petr, Obersteiner, Michael, Guenet, Bertrand +9 more·2021·Nature Communications
DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-20406-7PMC PMC7785734
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Abstract

Grasslands absorb and release carbon dioxide (CO 2), emit methane (CH 4) from grazing livestock, and emit nitrous oxide (N 2 O) from soils. Little is known about how the fluxes of these three greenhouse gases, from managed and natural grasslands worldwide, have contributed to past climate change, or the roles of managed pastures versus natural grasslands. Here, global trends and regional patterns of the full greenhouse gas balance of grasslands are estimated for the period 1750 to 2012. A new spatially explicit land surface model is applied, to separate the direct effects of human activities from land management and the indirect effects from climate change, increasing CO 2 and regional changes in nitrogen deposition. Direct human management activities are simulated to have caused grasslands to switch from a sink to a source of greenhouse gas, because of increased livestock numbers and accelerated conversion of natural lands to pasture. However, climate change drivers contributed a net carbon sink in soil organic matter, mainly from the increased productivity of grasslands due to increased CO 2 and nitrogen deposition. The net radiative forcing of all grasslands is currently close to neutral, but has been increasing since the 1960s. Here, we show that the net global climate warming caused by managed grassland cancels the net climate cooling from carbon sinks in sparsely grazed and natural grasslands. In the face of future climate change and increased demand for livestock products, these findings highlight the need to use sustainable management to preserve and enhance soil carbon storage in grasslands and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from managed grasslands.

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  • Estimations of the extent of grasslands globally and their current SOC stocks vary across studies due to the definition of grasslands and data uncertainties.

    “Estimation of the extent of grasslands globally and their current SOC stocks vary across studies due to the definition of grasslands and data uncertainties35,38,39.”

    From Risk to rely on soil carbon sequestration to offset global ruminant emissions (2023) · cites this paper as [39]

    The Methods section (page unavailable) defines the grassland area used in this study and acknowledges scarce data and uncertainty for changes in grassland soil carbon. The Results and discussion section (page unavailable) mentions three soil-carbon-stock datasets. Neither section establishes that estimates of global grassland extent and current SOC stocks vary across studies because of differing definitions and data uncertainties. (LLM, conf=0.76)

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Chang, J., Ciais, P., Gasser, T., Smith, P., Herrero, M., Havlík, P., Obersteiner, M., Guenet, B., Goll, D. S., Li, W., Naipal, V., Peng, S., Qiu, C., Tian, H., Viovy, N., Yue, C., & Zhu, D.
Affiliations
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
  • International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (AT)
  • University of Aberdeen (GB)
  • Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU)
  • Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
  • Peking University (CN)
  • Auburn University (US)
  • State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau (CN)
Corresponding author
Chang, Jinfeng
ORCID
Venue
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2021-01-05
Volume
12
Issue
1
Pages
118-118
ISSN
2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41467-020-20406-7
PMC
PMC7785734
OpenAlex
W3107006804
Cited by
313
References
8
Citations by year
2026: 41 · 2025: 58 · 2024: 74 · 2023: 53 · 2022: 52 · 2021: 35
FWCI
31.22
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • IIASA PURE (International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis) (acceptedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • Belmont Forum
  • Agence Nationale de la Recherche (2017-, ANR-16-CONV-0003)
  • Grand Équipement National De Calcul Intensif
  • Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (776810, 610028, No 776810)
  • Natural Environment Research Council (NE/M021327/1, NE/P019455/1, NE/M016900/1)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Forestry › Pasture and Agricultural Systems
Keywords
managed grasslands, natural grassland, greenhouse gas balance, carbon sink, soil organic carbon, livestock methane emissions, nitrous oxide emissions, radiative forcing, land use change, nitrogen deposition, global warming, land surface model, soil carbon storage

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