Introduction the Soil Carbon Pool and Global Change

Introduction the Soil Carbon Pool and Global Change. 185 

Factors Affecting the Distribution of Soil Organic Carbon. 186 

Estimates of the size of the global soil organic carbon (SOC) pool have ranged between 700 Pg (Bolin, 1970) and 2946 Pg (Bohn, 1976), with a value of around 1500 Gt now generally accepted as the most appropriate (Table 1). This value is considered to be between one-half (e.g., Townsend et ah, 1995) and two-thirds (e.g., Trumbore et ai, 1996) of the total terrestrial carbon pool. 

This chapter examines the status of observational studies of the SOC pool, global trends in the soil carbon pool, and the relationship between observational studies and efforts to model the dynamics of carbon exchange in the SOC pool and suggests how 

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