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--></style><title>Have unmanaged forests been the better carbon
sink?</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Helvetica Neue"><i>Ecosystems </i> First online:
14 January 2016</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Helvetica Neue"><br>
<b>Open Access</b></font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Helvetica Neue"><br>
</font><font face="Georgia Bold">Past and Future Drivers of an
Unmanaged Carbon Sink in European Temperate Forest</font><font
face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Helvetica Neue">Katherine A. Allen ,
Veiko Lehsten , Karen Hale ,
Richard Bradshaw </font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Helvetica Neue"><br>
Keywords</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Helvetica Neue">forest management - carbon storage
dynamics - dynamic vegetation model -LPJ-GUESS -climate change -
atmospheric CO2</font><font face="Arial"><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Georgia">Abstract</font><font face="Georgia Bold">
(</font><font face="Helvetica Neue"><b>Open Access</b></font><font
face="Georgia Bold">)</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font
face="Georgia"><u
>http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10021-015-9950-1</u></font><br
>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Helvetica Neue">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.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1"
color="#1A1A1A">============ Variations on the "Think
globally, act locally" theme ===========</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#1A1A1A"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">"Ignorance of
remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events to the causes
immediate and instrumental: for these are all the causes they
perceive."<br>
<br>
Attributed to Thomas Hobbes<br>
-------------------------------------------------------------------<br
>
"Making connections is the essence of scientific progress."<br>
<br>
Chris Quigg, "Aesthetic Science,"<br>
<i>Scientific American,</i> April 1999<br>
------------------------------------<br>
"The structural relations within and between human societies and
their environments form the most complex systems known to
science."<br>
<br>
Charles D. Laughlin and Ivan Brady, editors,<br>
<i>Extinction and Survival in Human Populations<br>
</i>Columbia University Press, 1978<br>
<i>-------------------------------------------------------<br>
</i>"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."<br>
<br>
Alfred Adler (1870 -1937), quoted in<i> The Individual Psychology of
Alfred Adler,<br>
</i>Heinz L. Ansbacher and Rowena R. Ansbacker, editors<br>
Harper Torchbooks, Harper & Row Publishers, 1956<br>
-----------------------------------------------------------------<br>
"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 difficult for one to believe that one event (El Nino or La
Nina) could possibly have influence on the other (e.g. drought in
southern Africa or hurricanes in the tropical Atlantic). Nevertheless,
physical and statistical research has shown that such linkages do
exist."<br>
<br>
Michael Glantz.<i> Currents of Change : Impacts of El Nino and La Nina
on Climate and Society</i>. Cambridge University Press,
2001</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1"
color="#000000"
>---------------------------------------------------------------<br>
"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."<br>
<br>
M. Lenzen, D. Moran, K. Kanemoto, B. Foran, L. Lobefaro & A.
Geschke.International trade drives biodiversity threats in developing
nations.<i> Nature </i> 7 June 2012 doi:10.1038/nature11145<br>
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