This initiative emerged from a Powell Center Working Group on soil carbon stabilization mechanisms.

Short project description

Soils are a vast reservoir of organic carbon (C), rendering the fate of soil C an important control on the global climate system. Widespread changes in soil C storage capacity present a potentially strong feedback to global change. Yet, a comprehensive understanding of how soil C will respond to climate and/or land use disturbance remains illusive, resulting in major uncertainties in global climate models. Our working group will synthesize information on the processes controlling soil C storage across different spatial scales and develop new procedures to translate local measurements to the regional and global scale datasets used by models.

These activities will improve our ability to map the vulnerability of soil C and constrain the role of soil change on the climate system.

Soil pictures

Members involved travel all over the world studying soils. Here are some pictures!