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About 35 years ago ice core-based records have first revealed the dramatic glacial-to-interglacial changes in the atmospheric CO 2 content. In view of the modern men-made rise in atmospheric CO 2 these natural changes belong to the hottest topics in the study of the Earth´s carbon cycle. Since the 1980s an enormous and rapidly ever growing wealth of scientific findings and models has been published, that uncover the role of carbon exchange between the largest reservoir on earth, the global ocean, and those in the atmosphere and on land, studies that clearly urge for an overview and broad synthesis.

The volume provides a platform capable of identifying limitations in models of key carbon-cycle processes that control the carbon exchange amongst the four major carbon pools of the earth´s surface, the ocean, atmosphere, terrestrial biosphere, and soils. The present volume contains almost 70 extended abstracts on the latest state of the art in the outlined fields of CO 2 research. The papers evaluate empiric and model-based findings on changing past carbon inventories as well as on modes, locations, and rates of carbon transfer.

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