How much carbon can soils hold? A global-scale assessment of the geochemical controls driving soil organic carbon storage and vulnerability

Katerina Georgiou is a Scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory(LLNL).

Abstract: Chemical and physical associations of organic carbon with clay minerals play a critical role in carbon storage and persistence in soils and sediments. At the global-scale, mineral-associated carbon constitutes the largest component of soil organic carbon in non-permafrost mineral soils. However, the capacity and vulnerability of mineral-associated carbon remains uncertain. Furthermore, data limitations have hindered global-scale analyses of mineral-associated carbon and its benchmarking in Earth System Models used to estimate carbon cycle-climate feedbacks. This talk will consist of two parts: (i) a discussion and quantification of the mineralogical capacity of soils to store carbon using a synthesis of > 1,100 globally-distributed soil profiles, and (ii) an assessment of the climatological temperature sensitivity of mineral-associated carbon in data and models globally. Quantifying the inherent capacity of soils to accumulate carbon, especially in more persistent mineral-associated forms, is critical for informing carbon sequestration initiatives and improving projections of carbon cycle-climate feedbacks.

About: Katerina Georgiou is a Staff Scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Her research focuses on understanding and modeling how soil carbon cycling will respond to changes in climate and management, with particular interest in how pore-scale processes modulate emergent ecosystem-scale behavior. Prior to joining LLNL, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Earth System Science at Stanford University. Katerina received a Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from UC Berkeley, working jointly with the Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.