Publication Date:
2011-07-19
Description:
The terrestrial carbon sink has been large in recent decades, but its size and location remain uncertain. Using forest inventory data and long-term ecosystem carbon studies, we estimate a total forest sink of 2.4 +/- 0.4 petagrams of carbon per year (Pg C year(-1)) globally for 1990 to 2007. We also estimate a source of 1.3 +/- 0.7 Pg C year(-1) from tropical land-use change, consisting of a gross tropical deforestation emission of 2.9 +/- 0.5 Pg C year(-1) partially compensated by a carbon sink in tropical forest regrowth of 1.6 +/- 0.5 Pg C year(-1). Together, the fluxes comprise a net global forest sink of 1.1 +/- 0.8 Pg C year(-1), with tropical estimates having the largest uncertainties. Our total forest sink estimate is equivalent in magnitude to the terrestrial sink deduced from fossil fuel emissions and land-use change sources minus ocean and atmospheric sinks.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Pan, Yude -- Birdsey, Richard A -- Fang, Jingyun -- Houghton, Richard -- Kauppi, Pekka E -- Kurz, Werner A -- Phillips, Oliver L -- Shvidenko, Anatoly -- Lewis, Simon L -- Canadell, Josep G -- Ciais, Philippe -- Jackson, Robert B -- Pacala, Stephen W -- McGuire, A David -- Piao, Shilong -- Rautiainen, Aapo -- Sitch, Stephen -- Hayes, Daniel -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Aug 19;333(6045):988-93. doi: 10.1126/science.1201609. Epub 2011 Jul 14.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Newtown Square, PA 19073, USA. ypan@fs.fed.us〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21764754" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Atmosphere
;
Biomass
;
Carbon/analysis
;
Carbon Dioxide/analysis
;
*Carbon Sequestration
;
Climate Change
;
Conservation of Natural Resources
;
*Ecosystem
;
*Trees
;
Tropical Climate
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
