Transport of Pyrogenic Humic Substances by Particulate Organic Matter in Fire-Affected Arenosols

摘要

In Mediterranean ecosystems, forest fires occur frequently during the hot and dry summers. Wildfires yield large amounts of C02 and NO-x to the atmosphere whereas considerable amounts of severely or partly charred necromass are incorporated into the soil. Due to the highly refractory nature of such thermally-condensed products, they are assumed to play an important carbon (C) sink in the global C cycle. At first sight, this could be considered as a benefit from the viewpoint of mitigating the effects of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. But assuming that biomass burning occurred at the same rate than nowadays since the last glacial maximum, black carbon (BC) should account for 25 to 125% of the total soil organic matter (SOM) pool (2).