Existing research provides estimates of the biophysical potential for increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) stock, however additional research is needed to enhance our understanding of the economic potential for agricultural soils to offset or help reduce CO2 emissions. This study derives the marginal cost to increase SOC sequestration by combining SOC sequestration potential estimates developed using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) factors with an existing payment scheme that was designed to increase no-till (NT) adoption on U.S. cropland. The marginal costs of increasing SOC is a function of the amount of SOC that could be increased through NT and the expected cost to landowners of changing management to use NT. The variability in SOC sequestration rates due to different land-use, management histories, climate, and soils, combined with the 48 unique payment rates to adopt NT, yield over 5,000 unique marginal cost values for increasing SOC sequestration. Nearly 95 percent of the biophysical potential SOC sequestration increase on U.S. cropland (2802 Tg CO2 from 140.1 Tg CO2 year−1 for 20 years) could be captured for less than $100 Mg−1 CO2. An estimated 64 to 93 percent of the biophysical potential could be captured for less than the low and high estimated costs to capture CO2 for geologic storage of $36.36 to $86.06 Mg−1 CO2, respectively. Decreasing tillage intensity through adoption of no-till agriculture offers a cost-effective way to offset a portion of increasing global CO2 emissions. This research demonstrates that increasing SOC stocks through NT adoption can offset CO2 emissions at a lower cost than some other options for preventing CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

中文翻译：

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在美国农田上免耕增加土壤有机碳的成本是多少？

现有研究提供了增加土壤有机碳（SOC）存量的生物物理潜力的估计，但是还需要其他研究来增强我们对农业土壤抵消或帮助减少CO2排放的经济潜力的认识。这项研究通过结合使用政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）因素开发的SOC封存潜力估算值和旨在提高美国耕地免耕（NT）采用率的现有支付方案，得出增加SOC封存的边际成本。增加SOC的边际成本是可以通过NT增加的SOC数量和将管理更改为使用NT的土地所有者预期成本的函数。由于土地使用，管理历史，气候和土壤的不同，SOC固存速率的变化，结合采用NT的48种独特支付率，可产生5,000多种独特的边际成本值，以增加SOC封存。在美国耕地中，将近95％的生物物理潜在SOC隔离增加（从200.1 Tg CO2第1年的140.1 Tg CO2吸收了2802 Tg CO2）的价格低于$ 100 Mg-1 CO2。估计捕获生物物理潜力的64％至93％的费用低于为地质封存捕获二氧化碳所需的低和高估计成本，分别为36.36至86.06美元Mg-1 CO2。通过采用免耕农业来降低耕种强度，可以提供一种经济有效的方式来抵消全球二氧化碳排放量增加的部分。