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Internal · Terrestrial biosphere

Great Acceleration — terrestrial biosphere indicator

Candidate replacements for the dashboard's biosphere-degradation panel — data, trade-offs, and references laid out for a per-panel decision.

Provenance. Every figure carries its source and uncertainty. Where a series has no published annual reconstruction, straight segments connect published anchors — the shape between anchors is not data. Indicative values are never presented as authoritative.
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The problem

The current "terrestrial biosphere degradation" panel (Steffen et al. 2015) plots percent decrease in mean species abundance from a single GLOBIO3 model run (Alkemade et al. 2009 framework; ten Brink et al. 2010 data) — sparse (50-year steps) and ending at a modelled ~2000 value, never updated. The published panel covers 1750–2010; the lone 2050 projection sitting in the source spreadsheet is not plotted in the figure. We want a more current, better-validated global indicator.

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Comparison matrix

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Candidate indicators

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Time-series

Plotted from harvested data. Badges mark provenance — observed model interpolated.

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Recommendation

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References