Global Carbon Project 2025

This source code version was used in the creation of the peer-reviewed paper described below.

DALEC version: DALEC.4.
Who carried out the CARDAMOM analysis: T. L. Smallman ([email protected])
Who analysed the output: T. L. Smallman ([email protected])

Release Abstract:

This code version was used in the generation of the CARDAMOM analysis which:

1. Contributed the to "Global Carbon Project 2025" led by Pierre Friedlingstein et al., (in prep)
2. Formed the basis of "The global terrestrial carbon cycle - a systemic model-data fusion analysis" by Smallman, Milodowski & Williams

Citation:
| Registered 12 Mar 2026 | Data description article

Smallman, Milodowski, and Williams (in-review) The contemporary global terrestrial carbon cycle - a systemic model-data fusion analysis, Earth System Science Data, essd-2026-191

Williams_etal_2025_Biogeosciences

This source code version was used in the creation of the peer-reviewed paper described below.

DALEC version: DALEC.4.
Who carried out the CARDAMOM analysis: T. L. Smallman ([email protected])
Who analysed the output: David T. Milodowski ([email protected]) & Mathew Williams ([email protected])

Paper Abstract:
Southern African woodlands (SAW) are the world's largest savanna, covering ∼ 3 M km2, but their carbon balance and its interactions with climate and disturbance are poorly understood. Here we address three issues that hinder regional efforts to address international climate agreements: producing a state-of-the-art C budget of the SAW region; diagnosing C cycle functional variation and interactions with climate and fire across SAW; and evaluating SAW C cycle representation in land surface models (LSMs). Using 1506 independent 0.5° pixel model calibrations, each constrained with local Earth observation time series of woody carbon stocks (Cwood) and leaf area, we produce a regional SAW C analysis (2006–2017). The regional net biome production is neutral, i.e. −0.08 Mg C ha−1 yr−1 (95 % uncertainty interval −1.67/1.66), with fire emissions contributing ∼ 0.88 Mg C ha−1 yr−1 (95 % uncertainty interval 0.36–2.51). Fire-related mortality driving fluxes from the total Cwood to dead organic matter likely exceeds both fire-related emissions from Cwood into the atmosphere and non-fire Cwood mortality. The emergent spatial variation in biogenic fluxes and C pools is strongly correlated with mean annual precipitation and burned area. However, there are multiple, potentially confounding, causal pathways through which variation in environmental drivers impacts the spatial distribution of C stocks and fluxes, which is mediated by spatial variations in functional parameters like allocation, wood lifespan, and fire resilience. More Cwood in wetter areas is caused by positive precipitation effects on net primary production and on parameters for wood lifespan but is damped by a negative effect with rising precipitation increasing fire-related mortality. Compared to this analysis, LSMs showed marked differences in spatial distributions and magnitudes of C stocks and fire emissions. The current generation of LSMs represents savanna as a single plant functional type, missing important spatial functional variations identified here. Patterns of biomass and C cycling across the region are the outcome of climate controls on production and vegetation–fire interactions which determine residence times, which is linked to spatial variations in key ecosystem functional characteristics.

Citation:
Williams, M., Milodowski, D. T., Smallman, T. L., Dexter, K. G., Hegerl, G. C., McNicol, I. M., O'Sullivan, M., Roesch, C. M., Ryan, C. M., Sitch, S., and Valade, A.: Precipitation–fire functional interactions control biomass stocks and carbon exchanges across the world's largest savanna, Biogeosciences, 22, 1597–1614, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-1597-2025, 2025.