Session: Soil Carbon Is Dead, Long Live Soil Carbon! Assessing and Predicting Transformations, Protection, and Turnover Oral I (includes student competition)

Division: SSSA Division: Soil Chemistry

Title: Soil Carbon Is Dead, Long Live Soil Carbon! Assessing and Predicting Transformations, Protection, and Turnover Oral I (includes student competition)

Lead Community Sponsor:
Cosponsor: SSSA Division: Soil Biology and Biochemistry, SSSA Division: Forest, Range and Wildland Soils, SSSA Division: Wetland Soils
Community Cosponsor:
Format: Oral Topical Session
Keywords: SOC controlling mechanisms , SOC turnover rates and Soil carbon

Session Description: The response of the soil to environmental change has emerged as a primary source of uncertainty in global C cycle models. In order to quantify and predict the response to disturbance, the physical, chemical, and biological mechanisms regulating soil turnover need to be integrated with terrestrial C cycle models. We seek contributions focusing on: (1) identifying physical and biogeochemical mechanisms controlling soil turnover rates; (2) quantifying the contributions of individual mechanisms across spatial and temporal scales; (3) developing modeling approaches to represent rate-controlling mechanisms; and (4) identification of knowledge gaps that hinder model-data fusion.