| Session Details | |
| Section | BG - Biogeosciences |
| Session Title | Current Status of Terrestrial Carbon Budget and Process Understanding |
| Main Convener | Prof. Masayuki Kondo (Chiba University, Japan) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Forrest Hoffman (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States) |
| Session Description | Large variations in predictions of future atmospheric CO2 levels are tied to biases during the present era; therefore, accurate assessment of current carbon exchange between the atmosphere, ocean, and land is required. The terrestrial biosphere absorbs one-third of carbon emitted from fossil fuel consumption and cement production, acting as the key mitigating pathway of current climate change associated with the steady increase in atmospheric CO2. To date, the research community has spent significant efforts to understand the regional and global patterns of terrestrial carbon sinks and sources (i.e., carbon budgets). However, the CO2 budget of the terrestrial biosphere is still the most uncertain and unconstrained of all components of the global carbon cycle because of its rapid variability and the complex mechanisms of ecosystem functions and human disturbances. Even today, global and regional terrestrial carbon budgets have been found to be inconsistent between process-based and atmospheric-measurement-based approaches, suggesting the gap is compensated by components that are not well understood in modelling. This workshop aims to bring together researchers from institutes and academia across the world to discuss issues in terrestrial carbon budgets and to facilitate collaborations for future syntheses (i.e, the second stage of REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes: RECCAP2). We encourage broad research topics that involve (1) top-down approaches (e.g., atmospheric inversion), (2) bottom-up approaches (e.g., process-based modelling and empirical upscaling), and (3) syntheses of multiple approaches, including those above. We also welcome research that focuses on new developments for carbon budget estimation using the latest satellite observations (e.g., from GOSAT and OCO-2), multiple interactions in process models (climate, land-use changes, nitrogen fertilization), and upscaling of flux tower measurements. |