Search

This repository contains the data used to produce all figures in Beringer et al. "CO2 fertilization effect may balance climate change impacts on oil palm cultivation" (in review).

IASS Working Paper

In nie dagewesener Größenordnung greift der Mensch durch die Verbrennung fossiler Energieträger und der weiträumigen Umgestaltung der Landoberfläche in die globale Umwelt ein. Klimawandel und Übernutzung natürlicher Ressourcen könnten schon in diesem Jahrhundert die Anpassungsfähigkeiten vieler ökologischer und sozialer Systeme übersteigen und somit zu Konflikten und politischer Destabilisierung führen. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll diese Studie zu einem besseren Verständnis der wichtigsten globalen Triebkräfte beitragen, die die Entwicklung der terrestrischen Biosphäre in diesem Jahrhundert prägen werden: Klimawandel und menschliche Landnutzung. Auf der Basis eines Dynamischen Globalen Vegetationsmodells werden im ersten Teil der vorliegenden Arbeit zwei große klimatische Störungen des globalen Kohlenstoffkreislaufs untersucht, die innerhalb der letzten drei Jahrzehnte beobachtet wurden. Im Fordergrund steht die Frage, wie sich die Veränderungen von Temperatur-, Niederschlags- und Strahlungsbedingungen auf pflanzliche Produktivität und Zersetzungsprozesse im Boden auswirkten. Es zeigt sich, dass vermehrte Kohlenstoffspeicherung in der Landbiosphäre den überwiegenden Teil der atmosphärischen CO2 Anomalien erklärt. Der zweite Teil dieser Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der weltweit steigenden Nachfrage nach Bioenergie, die aufgrund des flächenintensiven Anbaus von Biomasse zur wichtigsten Triebkraft für zukünftige Landnutzungsänderungen werden könnte. Aus der Kombination von Vegetationsmodellierung und räumlichen Datenanalysen werden globale Bioenergiepotentiale unter Berücksichtigung verschiedener Nachhaltigkeitsanforderungen bestimmt und mögliche ökologische Auswirkungen des großräumigen Anbaus von Energiepflanzen abgeschätzt. Im Jahr 2050 könnten demnach 15-25% des weltweiten Energiebedarfs durch Bioenergie abgedeckt werden. Dafür müssten allerdings natürliche Ökosysteme in großem Umfang in Agrarland umgewandelt werden. Human activities, primarily the combustion of fossil fuels and the global modification of the land surface, are transforming the Earth System at unprecedented scale. Climate change and the overexploitation of natural resources may soon overwhelm the adaptive capacities of many ecosystems and societies, which could lead to substantial losses in human well-being and political destabilization. In this context, it is the goal of this thesis to contribute to a better understanding of the most important global drivers that will determine the future of the land biosphere during this century: climate change and human land use. Based on a Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM), the first part of this thesis examines two large climatic disturbances of the terrestrial carbon cycle that were observed during the last three decades. These analyses focus on the effects of changes in temperature, precipitation and radiation on plant productivity and soil decomposition. Results indicate that increased carbon storage in the land biosphere explains the most part of the atmospheric CO2 anomaly. The second part of this thesis addresses the worldwide increasing demand for bioenergy that may become the most important driver of future land use change due to the large area requirements of biomass cultivation. A combination of vegetation modeling and spatial data analyses is used to assess global bioenergy potentials that consider various sustainability requirements for food security, biodiversity protection and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and to evaluate the environmental impacts of large-scale energy crop cultivation. The results indicate that bioenergy may provide between 15 and 25% of the global energy demand in 2050. Exploiting these potentials, however, requires the conversion of large amounts of natural vegetation into agricultural land affecting a large number of ecosystems already fragmented and degraded by land use change.

Biomass from cellulosic bioenergy crops is expected to play a substantial role in future energy systems, especially if climate policy aims at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentration at low levels. However, the potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation remains unclear due to large uncertainties about future agricultural yield improvements and land availability for biomass plantations. This letter, by applying a modelling framework with detailed economic representation of the land and energy sector, explores the cost-effective contribution of bioenergy to a low-carbon transition, paying special attention to implications for the land system. In this modelling framework, bioenergy competes directly with other energy technology options on the basis of costs, including implicit costs due to biophysical constraints on land and water availability. As a result, we find that bioenergy from specialized grassy and woody bioenergy crops, such as Miscanthus or poplar, can contribute approximately 100 EJ in 2055 and up to 300 EJ of primary energy in 2095. Protecting natural forests decreases biomass availability for energy production in the medium, but not in the long run. Reducing the land available for agricultural use can partially be compensated for by means of higher rates of technological change in agriculture. In addition, our trade-off analysis indicates that forest protection combined with large-scale cultivation of dedicated bioenergy is likely to affect bioenergy potentials, but also to increase global food prices and increase water scarcity. Therefore, integrated policies for energy, land use and water management are needed.

Increased future demands for food, fibre and fuels from biomass can only be met if the available land and water resources on a global scale are used and managed as efficiently as possible. The main routes for making the global agricultural system more productive are through intensification and technological change on currently used agricultural land, land expansion into currently non-agricultural areas, and international trade in agricultural commodities and processed goods. In order to analyse the trade-offs and synergies between these options, we present a global bio-economic modelling approach with a special focus on spatially explicit land and water constraints as well as technological change in agricultural production. For a given bioenergy demand scenario until the middle of the 21st century and different land allocation options, we analyse the required rate of productivity increase on agricultural land as well as the implicit values (shadow prices) of limited land and water resources. The shadow prices for bioenergy are provided as a metric for assessing the trade-offs between different land allocation options.