On organic soil carbon and CO2

Hinrich L. Bohn

doi:10.3402/tellusa.v30i5.10391

On organic soil carbon and CO2

Tellus

Volume 30 (1978): Issue 5

By: Hinrich L. Bohn

Open Access

|Jan 1978

Abstract

Cultivation of virgin lands released about 150 × 10¹² kg of carbon as CO₂ to the atmosphere during the last 100 years, at rates of 1 to 2 × 10¹² kg/yr. These rates exceeded the CO₂ evolved from fossil fuel combustion until the mid-1960s. Soil organic carbon, in organic and mineral soils, may play a considerable role in the CO₂ cycle and in controlling the CO₂ concentration of the atmosphere.

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