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Soil and other Earth scientists who conduct research on C management found themselves, in the past decade within a swirl of efforts concerning climate mitigation, economic and business investments in carbon markets, and political aspirations. All these external pressures are issues with which soil science is largely unfamiliar. As a result, science has responded without deeply considering the landscape in which it finds itself, and some of the unanticipated challenges these issues present. Here, we suggest soil C scientists now consider and respond to these issues. The first order challenge is to transition from the concept of technical carbon sequestration potentials, made in the absence of social and policy contexts, to societally achievable sequestration estimates based on highly transdisciplinary teams of natural and social sciences and scientists. To achieve this will requires re-thinking national science funding programs, in which climate-relevant social science is under-funded. In addition, the science of soil C itself is in need of a priority shift. Presently, publications in soil C sequestration out-strip papers on soil feedbacks to climate change, and on how to adapt soil to climate change: two areas of research which may well be more societal important in the next few decades than sequestering C. Most seriously, given the urgent nature of our collective societal climate problem, our profession must not find itself a decade from now continuing the now 20-year-old narrative that soil C can potentially mitigate climate change and compensate for greenhouse gas emissions. We must consider the possibility that other options and expenditures of resources are more viable, and we must reframe our science's objectives to expand into the many other urgent needs that confront humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unfolding climate crisis is in many respects a human issue, one caused by anthropogenic emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere, and that can only be solved through a concerted effort across all sectors of society. In this prospective synthesis, I explain how expanding the scope of biogeochemical research would lead to a more rigorous and impactful climate change mitigation and adaptation agenda. Focusing on biogeochemistry as an area of interdisciplinary convergence, I review theories and empirical studies in the environmental and social sciences, to distill five principles and three phases of implementation for sustainable carbon capture projects. I discuss how land conservation, management, and restoration might be coordinated to prepare for climate change and to achieve multiple social and ecological benefits, including enhanced carbon drawdown and permanence on land. On the conservation front, the abundance of threatened plant and animal species spatially correlates with the distribution of carbon- and water-rich habitats within and across key regions, which can be prioritized for biodiversity protection with major climatic benefits. On the management front, long-term records of socioecological change warrant a revision of current models for sustainable forestry and agriculture in favor of decentralized system-specific prescriptions, including interventions where organic or inorganic carbon capture may improve wood and food production under future climate scenarios. On the restoration front, experiments in degraded landscapes reveal mechanisms of carbon stabilization, such as iron-coordination of organic complexes, which amplify the benefits of ecological succession and lead to carbon accumulation beyond thresholds predicted for undisturbed ecosystems. These examples illustrate the potential for innovation at the intersection of basic and applied biogeoscience, which could accelerate atmospheric carbon capture through new discoveries and collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we analyse the radiative forcing implications of forest fertilization and biomass substitution, with explicit consideration of the temporal patterns of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to and removals from the atmosphere (net emissions). We model and compare the production and use of biomass from a hectare of fertilized and non-fertilized forest land in northern Sweden. We calculate the annual net emissions of CO, NO and CH for each system, over a 225-year period with 1-year time steps. We calculate the annual atmospheric concentration decay of each of these emissions, and calculate the resulting annual changes in instantaneous and cumulative radiative forcing. We find that forest fertilization can significantly increase biomass production, which increases the potential for material and energy substitution. The average carbon stock in tree biomass, forest soils and wood products all increase when fertilization is used. The additional GHG emissions due to fertilizer production and application are small compared to increases in substitution benefits and carbon stock. The radiative forcing of the 2 stands is identical for the first 15 years, followed by 2 years during which the fertilized stand produces slightly more radiative forcing. After year 18 the instantaneous and cumulative radiative forcing are consistently lower for the fertilized forest system. Both stands result in long-term negative radiative forcing, or cooling of the earth system. By the end of the 225-year simulation period, the cumulative radiative forcing reduction of the fertilized stand is over twice that of the non-fertilized stand. This suggests that forest fertilization and biomass substitution are effective options for climate change mitigation, as climate change is a long term issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]