CONTRIBUTION OF CHINA TO THE GLOBAL CARBON-CYCLE SINCE THE LAST GLACIAL MAXIMUM - RECONSTRUCTION FROM PALAEOVEGETATION MAPS AND AN EMPIRICAL BIOSPHERE MODEL

A better understanding of the long-term global carbon cycle requires i mproved estimates of the changes in terrestrial carbon storage (vegeta tion and soil) during the last glacial-interglacial transition. A set of reconstructions of palaeovegetation and palaeoclimate in China for the last glacial maximum (LGM) and the mid-Holocene (MH) allows us to use the Osnabruck biosphere model (OEM), which needs as input only 3 c limatic parameters that are easily derivable from palaeodata, to recon struct the past terrestrial carbon storage since the LGM. The change f rom the conditions of the LGM (colder and drier than present) to the M H (warmer and wetter than present) resulted in a gain of 116 Pg of ter restrial carbon in China mainly due to the build-up of temperate fores t and tropical monsoon rain forest, and to the effects of changes in c limate and CO2 levels. However, a loss of 26 Pg of terrestrial carbon (which does not include anthropogenic disturbances) occurred in China between the MH and the present due to shifts in the area covered by th e main vegetation types. Results also show that glacial-interglacial c hanges in climate and vegetation distribution, both associated with va riations in the Asian monsoon system, significantly affected terrestri al carbon storage in China which strongly contributed to the global ca rbon cycle.