Climate control on terrestrial biospheric carbon turnover

Significance Terrestrial organic-carbon reservoirs (vegetation, soils) currently consume more than a third of anthropogenic carbon emitted to the atmosphere, but response this “terrestrial sink” future climate change is widely debated. Rivers export organic sourced over their watersheds, offering an opportunity assess controls on land cycling broad spatial scales. Using radiocarbon ages biomolecular tracer compounds exported by rivers, we show that temperature and precipitation exert primary biospheric-carbon turnover within river basins. These findings reveal large-scale control soil stocks, they provide framework quantify responses terrestrial past change.