Over the past 18,000 years, the residence time and amount of soil carbon stored in the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin have been controlled by the intensity of Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall, with greater carbon destabilization during wetter, warmer conditions.
The storage of organic carbon in the terrestrial biosphere directly affects atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide over a wide range of timescales. Within the terrestrial biosphere, the magnitude of carbon storage can vary in response to environmental perturbations such as changing temperature or hydroclimate(1), potentially generating feedback on the atmospheric inventory of carbon dioxide. Although temperature controls the storage of soil organic carbon at mid and high latitudes(2,3), hydroclimate may be the dominant driver of soil carbon persistence in the tropics(4,5)