Spatial and temporal variations in global soil respiration and their relationships with climate and land cover

Soil respiration (R(s)) represents the largest flux of CO(2) from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere, but its spatial and temporal changes as well as the driving forces are not well understood. We derived a product of annual global R(s) from 2000 to 2014 at 1 km by 1 km spatial resolution using remote sensing data and biome-specific statistical models. Different from the existing view that climate change dominated changes in R(s), we showed that land-cover change played a more important role in regulating R(s) changes in temperate and boreal regions during 2000–2014. Significant changes in R(s) occurred more frequently in areas with significant changes in short vegetation cover (i.e., all vegetation shorter than 5 m in height) than in areas with significant climate change. These results contribute to our understanding of global R(s) patterns and highlight the importance of land-cover change in driving global and regional R(s) changes.