We are convening an AGU Session cross-listed with Biogeosciences and Global Environmental Change that focuses on soil C stabilization by minerals and microbial processes. Submit an abstract here: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm17/preliminaryview.cgi/Session25762
*B052: Of minerals and microbes: Models and experiments investigating the vulnerability of soil carbon* *Session ID#: *25762 Session Description: Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the largest actively cycling component of terrestrial carbon. The current size and future changes to this land C sink are becoming important to climate-change-mitigation policy makers. Perturbations associated with global change (e.g., warming, drought, fertilization) may cause linear, non-linear, or threshold changes in soil C stock, and are conceptualized and modeled in a variety of ways. Within the past decade, scientists have postulated many theories describing the biological, chemical, and physical interactions that control SOC pools and fluxes. These include the persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property, MEMS (microbial efficiency matrix stabilization), the “onion” layering model, etc. In this session, we focus on how these concepts are being applied to and tested using models and experiments. We need to understand and accurately represent biological, chemical, and physical mechanisms in order to predict the vulnerability of soil C to global change. Conveners: Caitlin Hicks Pries, Rose Z Abramoff, Katerina Georgiou
