ABSTRACT
The carbon reservoir in the continental biosphere is still poorly known and its variability in long-time series is quite conjectural. Continuous desert belt includes extra-arid, arid, and semiarid zones of the African and Asian continents and forms the most extensive arid area in the world. Temporal synchronism of climatic changes in the Sahara, southwestern Asia, and northern China during the glacial cycle and its correlation with monsoon activity were clearly shown by Petit-Maire and colleagues. The chapter aims to analyze environmental changes throughout this vast belt of desert landscape and to estimate the associated quantitative changes in biomass and carbon storage and their role in global carbon cycle variations. The methodology for assessments of biomass and carbon storage variations in paleolandscapes includes several successive stages of research. Estimations of carbon storage in paleoanalogues landscapes can also be extremely useful for validation of data simulated by ecological models.
