[MCN] Have unmanaged forests been the better carbon sink?

[Lance Olsen]

Ecosystems  First online: 14 January 2016

Open Access

Past and Future Drivers of an Unmanaged Carbon Sink in European 
Temperate Forest
Katherine A. Allen , Veiko Lehsten , Karen Hale , Richard Bradshaw 

Keywords
forest management - carbon storage dynamics - dynamic vegetation 
model -LPJ-GUESS -climate change - atmospheric CO2

Abstract (Open Access)
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10021-015-9950-1

Forests are major carbon stores on a global scale but there are 
significant uncertainties about changes in carbon flux through time 
and the relative contributions of drivers such as land use, climate 
and atmospheric CO2. We used the dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS 
to test the relative influence of CO2 increase, temperature increase 
and management on carbon storage in living biomass in an unmanaged 
European temperate deciduous forest. The model agreed well with 
living biomass reconstructed from forest surveys and maximum biomass 
values from other studies. High-resolution climate data from both 
historical records and general circulation models were used to force 
the model and was manipulated for some simulations to allow relative 
contributions of individual drivers to be assessed. Release from 
management was the major driver of carbon storage for most of the 
historical period, whereas CO2 took over as the most important driver 
in the last 20 years. Relatively, little of the observed historical 
increase in carbon stocks was attributable to increased temperature. 
Future simulations using IPCC RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios indicated 
that carbon stocks could increase by as much as 3 kg C m?2 by the end 
of the century, which is likely to be driven by CO2 increase. This 
study suggests that unmanaged semi-natural woodland in Europe can be 
a major potential carbon sink that has been previously 
underestimated. Increasing the area of unmanaged forest would provide 
carbon sink servic es during recovery from timber extraction, while 
long-term protection would ensure carbon stocks are maintained.

-- 
============   Variations on the "Think globally, act locally" theme 
===========

"Ignorance of remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events to 
the causes immediate and instrumental: for these are all the causes 
they perceive."

Attributed  to Thomas Hobbes
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"Making connections is the essence of scientific progress."

Chris Quigg, "Aesthetic Science,"
Scientific American, April 1999
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"The structural relations within and between human societies and 
their environments form the most complex systems known to science."

Charles D. Laughlin and Ivan Brady, editors,
Extinction and Survival in Human Populations
Columbia University Press, 1978
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"We are living on the surface of this planet, with only the resources 
of this planet, with the fertility of its soil, with its mineral 
wealth, and with its climate and atmosphere. It has always been the 
task of mankind to find the right answer to the problem these 
conditions set us, and even today we cannot think that we have found 
a sufficient answer."

Alfred Adler (1870 -1937), quoted in The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler,
Heinz L. Ansbacher and Rowena R. Ansbacker, editors
Harper Torchbooks, Harper & Row Publishers, 1956
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"Teleconnections can be defined as linkages between climate anomalies 
at some distance from each other. The large distances in space and 
the differences in timing between these anomalous events make it 
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Africa or hurricanes in the tropical Atlantic). Nevertheless, 
physical and statistical research has shown that such linkages do 
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Michael Glantz. Currents of Change : Impacts of El Nino and La Nina 
on Climate and Society. Cambridge University Press, 2001
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"We linked 25,000 Animalia species threat records from the 
International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List to more than 
15,000 commodities produced in 187 countries and evaluated more than 
5 billion supply chains in terms of their biodiversity impacts. 
Excluding invasive species, we found that 30% of global species 
threats are due to international trade. In many developed countries, 
the consumption of imported coffee, tea, sugar, textiles, fish and 
other manufactured items causes a biodiversity footprint that is 
larger abroad than at home."

M. Lenzen, D. Moran, K. Kanemoto, B. Foran, L. Lobefaro & A. 
Geschke.International trade drives biodiversity threats in developing 
nations. Nature  7 June 2012 doi:10.1038/nature11145
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