Fig. 4: Climatological temperature sensitivity of total soil C and the contribution of protected and unprotected pools.

The climatological temperature sensitivity of total soil C (denoted by a diamond) is an emergent property of the climatological temperature sensitivity of protected (brown circles) and unprotected (green circles) soil C pools, as well as the proportion of C within each of these pools (denoted by the marker area). The proportional decline in C for a 10 °C increase in MAT was calculated for each C pool, controlling for potential confounding variables (see ‘Data analysis’ in the Methods). Results are shown for the data product and an ensemble of ESMs and offline land models across gridcells with MAT > 0 °C globally; 95% CIs are given in Supplementary Table 6. Higher values (>1) indicate greater decreases in C with increasing climatological temperature, lower values (<1) indicate increases in C and values equal to 1 (grey dashed line) indicate thermal independence.