With as much as 40% of the world's fire emissions, about 20% of global net primary production and heterotrophic respiration, at least 20% of global land use emissions, and a major source of interannual variability in global net carbon exchange, African carbon dynamics are of global significance. The continent's vast carbon stocks seem to be highly vulnerable to climate change, evidenced by strong sensitivity of net ecosystem productivity and fire emissions to climate fluctuations. Being highly variable and insufficiently studied, there is a need for continued and enhanced observations of Africa's carbon stocks, fluxes, and atmospheric concentrations to enable more precise assessments of Africa's carbon cycle, and its sensitivity to natural and anthropogenic pressures and future climate.
In years ahead, Africa's land use pressures will undoubtedly increase and climate changes are anticipated to intensify drought cycles and make much of Africa warmer and dryer [69]. Furthermore, increasing exploitation of forest resource in the moist tropics is anticipated with economic development and investment in logging infrastructure. Such changes will likely release CO2 to the atmosphere as well as increase the magnitude of interannual variation in Africa's C fluxes by increasing Africa's biomass burning emissions and reducing the continent's net ecosystem productivity. If realized, these trends would have enormously important implications for global carbon dynamics and biospheric feedbacks to the climate system.
Competing interests
The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors' contributions
All authors participated in detailed discussions that led to this review paper. CAW compiled and analyzed the data and drafted the manuscript. NPH originally conceived the paper and contributed to data analyses, interpretation, drafting and editing the manuscript. JCN, RJS, JAB and ASD provided intellectual input on available data and previous analyses, and on the synthesis, presentation and interpretation needed for this review. DFB made data available from a global time-dependent inverse analysis of CO2 concentrations contributing to Figure 5. All of the authors read, edited, and approved the final manuscript.
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