Global increase in biomass carbon stock dominated by growth of northern young forests over past decade
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Global increase in biomass carbon stock dominated by growth of northern young forests over past decade. / Yang, Hui; Ciais, Philippe; Frappart, Frédéric; Li, Xiaojun; Brandt, Martin; Fensholt, Rasmus; Fan, Lei; Saatchi, Sassan; Besnard, Simon; Deng, Zhu; Bowring, Simon; Wigneron, Jean Pierre.
In: Nature Geoscience, Vol. 16, No. 10, 2023, p. 886-892.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Global increase in biomass carbon stock dominated by growth of northern young forests over past decade
AU - Yang, Hui
AU - Ciais, Philippe
AU - Frappart, Frédéric
AU - Li, Xiaojun
AU - Brandt, Martin
AU - Fensholt, Rasmus
AU - Fan, Lei
AU - Saatchi, Sassan
AU - Besnard, Simon
AU - Deng, Zhu
AU - Bowring, Simon
AU - Wigneron, Jean Pierre
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Changes in terrestrial carbon storage under environmental and land-use changes remain a critical source of uncertainty in regional and global carbon budgets. We generated global maps of annual live vegetation biomass using L-band microwave vegetation optical depth. Globally, biomass carbon stocks increased from 2010 to 2019 at a rate of 0.50 ± 0.20 PgC yr−1 with a year-to-year variability, closely mirroring the observations of the global atmospheric CO2 growth rate. The main contributors to the global carbon sink are boreal and temperate forests, while wet tropical forests are small carbon sources, from deforestation and agriculture-related disturbances. We found that the tropical deforested and degraded old-growth forests (>140 yr) are nearly carbon neutral whereas temperate and boreal young (< 50 yr) and middle-aged (50–140 yr) forests are the largest sinks. By contrast, dynamic global vegetation models show that all old-growth forests are large sinks and largely ignore the impacts of deforestation and degradation on tropical biomass. Our findings highlight the importance of forest demography when predicting dynamics of future carbon sink under changing climate.
AB - Changes in terrestrial carbon storage under environmental and land-use changes remain a critical source of uncertainty in regional and global carbon budgets. We generated global maps of annual live vegetation biomass using L-band microwave vegetation optical depth. Globally, biomass carbon stocks increased from 2010 to 2019 at a rate of 0.50 ± 0.20 PgC yr−1 with a year-to-year variability, closely mirroring the observations of the global atmospheric CO2 growth rate. The main contributors to the global carbon sink are boreal and temperate forests, while wet tropical forests are small carbon sources, from deforestation and agriculture-related disturbances. We found that the tropical deforested and degraded old-growth forests (>140 yr) are nearly carbon neutral whereas temperate and boreal young (< 50 yr) and middle-aged (50–140 yr) forests are the largest sinks. By contrast, dynamic global vegetation models show that all old-growth forests are large sinks and largely ignore the impacts of deforestation and degradation on tropical biomass. Our findings highlight the importance of forest demography when predicting dynamics of future carbon sink under changing climate.
U2 - 10.1038/s41561-023-01274-4
DO - 10.1038/s41561-023-01274-4
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85173119168
VL - 16
SP - 886
EP - 892
JO - Nature Geoscience
JF - Nature Geoscience
SN - 1752-0894
IS - 10
ER -
ID: 372329631