A climate-change risk assessment for carbon sequestration of terrestrial ecosystem: A case of farming-pastoral ecotone of northern China

We presented an assessment of the risks of anthropogenic climate change on the ecosystem service in China for a protected climate change from 1991 to 2080. IPCC reports were used to substitute the views of stakeholders to determine the risk assessment endpoint. Then, the approach of critical climate change was implied to evaluate the risk, according to the capacity of carbon sequestration simulated by the Atmosphere Vegetation Integrated Model, the risk of carbon sequestration under B2 climate scenario in 21st century was investigated. The results show that the risk scope is likely to expand with the increasing warming trend. Under B2 climate scenario, about 58.98%~61.31% of ecosystems will face the risk in study area. Risk will increase with the increasing warming. Northeast China and northwest of study area will be dangerous under SERS-B2 climate scenario. Moreover, the most vulnerable ecosystem to climate change will be forest. The marginal region will show more intensive risk than that of core region. Therefore, effective climate mitigation and impact adaptation strategies should be implemented soon, especially in the dangerous regions and ecosystems. At last, the uncertainties of this research were also discussed.