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Updated: May 7, 2026

Monitoring Pedogenic Inorganic Carbon Accumulation Due to Weathering of Amended Silicate Minerals in Agricultural Soils.
Published on: June 4, 2021
Historical warming reduced due to enhanced land carbon uptake
Elena Shevliakova1, Ronald J Stouffer, Sergey Malyshev
1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.
Abstract:
Previous studies have demonstrated the importance of enhanced vegetation growth under future elevated atmospheric CO2 for 21st century climate warming. Surprisingly no study has completed an analogous assessment for the historical period, during which emissions of greenhouse gases increased rapidly and land-use changes (LUC) dramatically altered terrestrial carbon sources and sinks. Using the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory comprehensive Earth System Model ESM2G and a reconstruction of the LUC, we estimate that enhanced vegetation growth has lowered the historical atmospheric CO2 concentration by 85 ppm, avoiding an additional 0.31 ± 0.06 °C warming. We demonstrate that without enhanced vegetation growth the total residual terrestrial carbon flux (i.e., the net land flux minus LUC flux) would be a source of 65-82 Gt of carbon (GtC) to atmosphere instead of the historical residual carbon sink of 186-192 GtC, a carbon saving of 251-274 GtC.
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