questioned the
climate change mitigation role for increased SOC reserves in northwest
Europe. This was mainly because (i) in their RothC simulation,
soils already approached a relatively high SOC level (∼80 t C ha−1,
0–23 cm depth) and (ii) the consequent slow rate of increase of SOC.
Although a robust conclusion, in terms of the generally low level of
SOC (1–2%) in southern European soils (Jones et al., 2004)