Building an Inventory of How Much Carbon the World’s Forests Store
Using satellite data, scientists have produced a first-of-its kind map that details the height of the world’s forests. Although there are other local- and regional-scale forest canopy maps, the new map is the first that spans the entire globe based on one uniform method.
The map, based on data collected by NASA’s ICESat, Terra, and Aqua satellites, should help scientists build an inventory of how much carbon the world’s forests store and how fast that carbon cycles through ecosystems and back into the atmosphere.
This new global depiction shows the world’s tallest forests clustered in the Pacific Northwest of North America and portions of Southeast Asia, while shorter forests are found in broad swaths across northern Canada and Eurasia. Temperate conifer forests – which are extremely moist and contain massive trees such as Douglas fir, western hemlock, redwoods, and sequoias – have the tallest canopies, soaring easily above 40 meters (131 feet). In contrast, boreal forests dominated by spruce, fir, pine, and larch had canopies typically less than 20 meters (65 feet). Relatively undisturbed areas in tropical rain forests were about 25 meters (82 feet), roughly the same height as the oak, beeches, and birches of temperate broadleaf forests common in Europe and much of the United States.
“This is a really just a first draft, and it will certainly be refined in the future,” said Michael Lefsky, the remote sensing specialist from Colorado State University who made the map. Lefsky described his results in a scientific report that has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. (more…)
Reforestation May Lower the Climate Change Mitigation Potential of Forests
Scientists at the University of Oklahoma and the Fudan University in Shanghai, China, have found that reforestation and afforestation — the creation of new forests — may lower the potential of forests for climate change lessening.
Yiqi Luo, professor of ecology in the OU College of Arts and Sciences Department of Botany and Microbiology, and Changzhang Liao, Bo Li and Changming Fang, professors of ecology in the Fudon University Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, examined whether plantations have the same ecosystem carbon stock as natural forests.
By synthesizing 86 experimental studies between plantations and their natural forest counterparts, Luo and colleagues found plantations substantially reduce carbon stock in ecosystems in comparison with natural forests.
“That decrease in ecosystem carbon stock should be accounted for, together with other forest products such as the harvested wood, when the total mitigation of reforestation is evaluated,” said Luo. (more…)
New England Losing Significant Forest Cover, According to New Report
Scientist David Orwig and students at work in Pisgah State Park, N.H. (Tawny Virgilio)
New England forests are at a turning point. After almost 200 years of natural reforestation, forest cover is declining in all six New England states.
So report scientists affiliated with the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Harvard Forest and Hubbard Brook Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, respectively. Harvard Forest and Hubbard Brook are two of 26 such NSF LTER sites.
The researchers, authors of a report released today–Wildlands and Woodlands: A Vision for the New England Landscape–call for conserving 70 percent of New England as forestland, a target they say is critical to protecting vital natural benefits that would be costly, and in some cases impossible, to replace.
The report was authored by 20 scientists from across New England with expertise in forest science, policy and finance.
It examines forest trends and promotes strategies for permanently retaining 70 percent of the New England landscape in forest over the next 50 years. (more…)
Strategies for Increasing Carbon Stored in Forests and Wood
Mt. Hood National Forest, Oregon
While the U.S. and other world leaders consider options for offsetting carbon emissions, it is important to take into account the role forests play in the global carbon cycle, say scientists in a paper published in the spring edition of Issues in Ecology. Currently, the carbon stored in forests and harvested wood products offsets 12-19 percent of U.S. fossil fuel emissions—growth primarily the result of recovery from the large scale harvesting that occurred around 100 years ago. These high offsets are not permanent but have the potential to increase; however, not without tradeoffs.
“Several strategies for offsetting carbon emissions have been proposed or are currently being implemented in the U.S.,” says Mike Ryan from the United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service and lead author of the paper. “Some of the important tradeoffs are worth mentioning because many people have viewed forests as a simple and uncomplicated partial solution to reducing CO2 in the atmosphere, and they are not.”
Mike Ryan and colleagues discuss eight strategies being used or proposed in the U.S., and the risks, uncertainties and tradeoffs of each. These include avoiding deforestation, afforestation (planting or replanting forests), decreasing harvests, increasing the growth rate of existing forests, using biomass energy from forests to reduce carbon emissions, using wood products in place of concrete or steel for building materials, implementing urban forestry and using fuel management to reduce fire threats. (more…)
Prescribed Burns May Help Reduce U.S. Carbon Footprint
Firefighters monitor the fire line during a prescribed burn. (Brady Smith / U.S. Forest Service, Southwestern Region, Coconino National Forest)
The use of prescribed burns to manage western forests may help the United States reduce its carbon footprint.
Results of a new study find that such burns, often used by forest managers to reduce underbrush and protect bigger trees, release substantially less carbon dioxide emissions than wildfires of the same size.
“It appears that prescribed burns can be an important piece of a climate change strategy,” says Christine Wiedinmyer, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., and lead author of the new study.
“If we reintroduce fires into our ecosystems, we may be able to protect larger trees and significantly reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by major wildfires.”
The research results are published this week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR’s sponsor.
Drawing on satellite observations and computer models of emissions, scientists concluded that widespread prescribed burns can reduce fire emissions of carbon dioxide in the West by an average of 18 to 25 percent, and by as much as 60 percent in certain forest systems.
Wildfires often consume large trees that store significant amounts of carbon, according to Steve Nelson, NSF program director for NCAR.
Prescribed fires are designed to burn underbrush and small trees, which store less carbon. (more…)
Climate Partnership Yields Initial Research Findings
Researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Earthwatch met in Panama from March 1-5 to present mid-term research results from the HSBC Climate Partnership, a five-year initiative to identify and respond to the impacts of climate change. (Marcos Guerra, STRI)
Researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Earthwatch met in Panama from Mar. 1-5 to present mid-term research results from the HSBC Climate Partnership, a five-year initiative to identify and respond to the impacts of climate change. The program is supported financially by HSBC and involves a global team of bank employees – ‘climate champions’ – in vital forest research.
The first-ever research program of its kind has so far:
* Found rapid increases in tree growth in the forest around the Smithsonian’s Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Maryland, USA, a finding attributed to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and longer growing seasons, published in PNAS.
* Proposed a novel biodiversity theory relating stress and seed-size published in PNAS.
* Examined the effects a changing climate in forests is having on white-tailed deer, mice and even mosquitoes.
* Addressed the lack of a reliable method for estimating the carbon storage capability of secondary forests on a landscape scale by assessing how measurements from airborne LiDAR and other remote sensing technologies relate to ground-based measurements.
* Reviewed how human disturbance changes the way forests take up carbon in diverse environments. (more…)
Forest Protected Areas a Critical Strategy for Slowing Climate Change
A MAP showing carbon stocks and potential emissions of selected forest protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon.
A new study involving scientists from 13 different organizations, universities and research institutions states that forest protection offers one of the most effective, practical, and immediate strategies to combat climate change. The study, “Indigenous Lands, Protected Areas, and Slowing Climate Change,” was published in PLoS Biology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and makes specific recommendations for incorporating protected areas into overall strategies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses from deforestation and degradation (nicknamed REDD).
“Deforestation leads to about 15 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes on earth. If we fail to reduce it, we’ll fail to stabilize our climate,” said Taylor Ricketts, director of World Wildlife Fund’s science program and lead author of the study. “Our paper emphasizes that creating and strengthening indigenous lands and other protected areas can offer an effective means to cut emissions while garnering numerous additional benefits for local people and wildlife.”
The authors highlight analyses showing that since 2002, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has been 7 to 11 times lower inside of indigenous lands and other protected areas than elsewhere. Simulation models suggest that protected areas established between 2003 and 2007 could prevent an estimated area of 100,000 square miles of deforestation through 2050. That is roughly the size of the state of Colorado, representing enough carbon to equal 1/3 of the world’s annual CO2 emissions. Within these efforts, location matters; protected areas in regions that face deforestation pressures would be most effective at truly reducing emissions. (more…)
Effects of Forest Fire on Carbon Emissions, Climate Impacts Often Overestimated
This stand replacement fire on Cache Mountain burned in the central Oregon Cascade Range in 2002, killing nearly all the overstory trees. By 2007 other non-tree vegetation began to grow back, however, somewhat offsetting the carbon releases from dead wood decomposition. (Photo by Garrett Meigs, Oregon State University)
A recent study at Oregon State University indicates that some past approaches to calculating the impacts of forest fires have grossly overestimated the number of live trees that burn up and the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result.
The research was done on the Metolius River Watershed in the central Oregon Cascade Range, where about one-third – or 100,000 acres – of the area burned in four large fires in 2002-03. Although some previous studies assumed that 30 percent of the mass of living trees was consumed during forest fires, this study found that only 1-3 percent was consumed.
Some estimates done around that time suggested that the B&B Complex fire in 2003, just one of the four Metolius fires, released 600 percent more carbon emissions than all other energy and fossil fuel use that year in the state of Oregon – but this study concluded that the four fires combined produced only about 2.5 percent of annual statewide carbon emissions.
Even in 2002, the most extreme fire year in recent history, the researchers estimate that all fires across Oregon emitted only about 22 percent of industrial and fossil fuel emissions in the state – and that number is much lower for most years, about 3 percent on average for the 10 years from 1992 to 2001. (more…)
Preparing the U.S. Southeast for Global Warming
Edward O. Wilson, Pulitzer-prize winning author and Harvard University professor emeritus.
A good-news global warming story about a pine tree with a storied past promises that a back-to-the-future approach will provide economic opportunities and help prepare the southeastern U.S. for a changing climate.
Restoring longleaf pine ecosystems across the Southeast will boost the economy and help the region cope with global warming’s expanding effects, according to a new report from national and regional conservation groups. Standing Tall: How Restoring the Longleaf Pine Can Help Prepare the Southeast for Global Warming has been released by the National Wildlife Federation and two southeast forest conservation groups, America’s Longleaf, and The Longleaf Alliance.
The report highlights the latest scientific research on global warming’s effects in the Southeast and how it puts southern forests at risk. The report also describes how longleaf pine forests are uniquely resilient to the long term impacts of global warming and the opportunities they present for forest landowners, especially minority and underserved landowners throughout the southern region.
“It is time for the longleaf pine forest to come to national attention,” said Edward O. Wilson, Pulitzer-prize winning author and Harvard University professor emeritus. “A substantial part of America’s environmental future is tied to this one species, which dominates the trees in the land it occupies. The longleaf also holds the key to an important part of the future economy of the southeastern United States.” (more…)
Climate Warming has Doubled Western US Tree Death Rates
Pete Fulé, associate professor in the School of Forestry and a director of the university's Ecological Restoration Institute, poses in the ponderosa pines.
Global warming is speeding up the mortality of trees, and NAU research is providing some of the data to prove it.
Pete Fulé, an NAU associate professor in the School of Forestry and a director of the university’s Ecological Restoration Institute, is a coauthor of “Widespread Increase of Tree Mortality Rates in the Western United States,” an article to be published in the Jan. 23 issue of Science journal.
The study, led by principal authors Phillip J. van Mantgem and Nathan L. Stephenson, scientists with the Western Ecological Research Center for the U.S. Geological Survey in northern California, “offers data to show that there is a problem with tree mortality in the West and that climate is an important element in the problem,” Fulé explained. (more…)
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