Impacts of climate change and grazing intensity on soil organic carbon in alpine meadow

In this paper, soil organic carbon was simulated in the next 50 years with CENTURY model in different climate scenarios at Damxung alpine meadow ecosystem. The result shows that temperature and precipitation are the main contributor to the changes of soil organic carbon. Increase in temperature and precipitation can reduce the accumulation of soil organic carbon resulting in the release of soil carbon. Simulation results are consistent in three climate change scenarios (temperature and precipitation increasing, temperature increasing and precipitation unchangeable, temperature unchangeable and precipitation increasing). The content of soil organic carbon decreased, only slightly difference in extent in the three scenarios. Grazing intensity was also a main factor to affect soil organic carbon and the influence on soil organic fractions was different.