The CARBO-North project integrates state-of-the-art science in the areas of flux measurements, carbon stock inventories, ecological understanding and Earth System modelling to quantify the long-term fluxes of greenhouse gases from the Northern Russian land mass, in order to support implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.

Specifically, we will produce regional carbon budgets for Northern Russia for successive time slices of the 21st century (and beyond) that are used to calculate changes in net radiative forcing and effects on future global climate predictions.

Carbon sinks and sources are investigated across spatial and temporal scales. Assessments at the plot to landscape levels carried out at intensive study sites in Northeast European Russia will be upscaled to regional and panarctic levels using GIS and modelling approaches. Investigations will focus on the rate at which critical ecosystem processes take place, including effects of human-induced and natural disturbances.

For this purpose we will reconstruct past changes in climate and environment, monitor and interpret present-day processes, and model future 'transient' and 'equilibrium' ecosystem responses for the next 100 years and beyond. All components of the regional carbon balance are studied, including tundra, taiga, wetlands, aquatic ecosystems and river export and their interconnections, with an integration of results through the application of a regional ecosystem model, the calculation of net radiative effects, and an assessment of the sensitivity of climate model predictions to expected ecosystem changes.

Through a comparison of regional carbon budgets under past and recent natural climate variability with future 'transient' and 'equilibrium' responses under global warming, an attribution of the relative importance of anthropogenic climate change and natural variability can be made. Results will aid EU policymakers to adjust criteria in greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.