Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Desert Southwest CESU

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The US Geological Survey, John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis, is offering a funding opportunity to increase quantification and prediction of soil carbon storage, stability, and susceptibility to disturbance. Experimentalists and modelers in the biogeochemical research community will be brought together to synthesize information on mechanisms of soil carbon storage across different soil ecosystems. The proposed activities will directly improve existing terrestrial carbon cycle models and thus our ability to predict the vulnerability of soil carbon to future environmental change and feedbacks to climate. Specific objectives are to (i) build consensus on methods and approaches to assess soil C dynamics, (ii) assemble and review large datasets in conjunction with the International Soil Carbon Network (ISCN), (iii) develop approaches for matching data with models and use models to improve spatial and temporal scaling strategies and (iv) facilitate broad participation of scientific community. Results will be presented at scientific meetings and published in the open literature. Data will be made publicly available.

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