scholarly journals Understanding the importance of primary tropical forest protection as a mitigation strategy

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 763-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Mackey ◽  
Cyril F. Kormos ◽  
Heather Keith ◽  
William R. Moomaw ◽  
Richard A. Houghton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Carbon Stocks ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Primary Forest ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Forest Protection ◽  
Ecosystem Carbon

Abstract Given the short time-frame to limit global warming, and the current emissions gap, it is critical to prioritise mitigation actions. To date, scant attention has been paid to the mitigation benefits of primary forest protection. We estimated tropical forest ecosystem carbon stocks and flows. The ecosystem carbon stock of primary tropical forests is estimated at 141–159 Pg C (billion tonnes of carbon) which is some 49–53% of all tropical forest carbon, the living biomass component of which alone is 91–103% of the remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Furthermore, tropical forests have ongoing sequestration rates 0.47–1.3 Pg C yr−1, equivalent to 8–13% of annual global anthropogenic CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions. We examined three main forest-based strategies used in the land sector—halting deforestation, increasing forest restoration and improving the sustainable management of production forests. The mitigation benefits of primary forest protection are contingent upon how degradation is defined and accounted for, while those from restoration also depend on how restoration is understood and applied. Through proforestation, reduced carbon stocks in secondary forests can regrow to their natural carbon carrying capacity or primary forest state. We evaluated published data from studies comparing logged and unlogged forests. On average, primary forests store around 35% more carbon. While comparisons are confounded by a range of factors, reported biomass carbon recovery rates were from 40 to 100+ years. There is a substantive portfolio of forest-based mitigation actions and interventions available to policy and decision-makers, depending on national circumstances, in addition to SFM and plantation focused approaches, that can be grouped into four main strategies: protection; proforestation, reforestation and restoration; reform of guidelines, accounting rules and default values; landscape conservation planning. Given the emissions gap, mitigation strategies that merely reduce the rate of emissions against historic or projected reference levels are insufficient. Mitigation strategies are needed that explicitly avoid emissions where possible as well as enabling ongoing sequestration.

scholarly journals Carbon Stock and Sequestration Potential of an Agroforestry System in Sabah, Malaysia

Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Normah Awang Besar ◽  
Herawandi Suardi ◽  
Mui-How Phua ◽  
Daniel James ◽  
Mazlin Bin Mokhtar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Oil Palm ◽  
Carbon Stock ◽  
Agroforestry System ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
Sequestration Potential ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Impact

Total aboveground carbon (TAC) and total soil carbon stock in the agroforestry system at the Balung River Plantation, Sabah, Malaysia were investigated to scientifically support the sustaining of natural forest for mitigating global warming via reducing carbon in the atmosphere. Agroforestry, monoculture, and natural tropical forests were investigated to calculate the carbon stock and sequestration based on three different combinations of oil palm and agarwood in agroforestry systems from 2014 to 2018. These combinations were oil palm (27 years) and agarwood (seven years), oil palm (20 years) and agarwood (seven years), and oil palm (17 years) and agarwood (five years). Monoculture oil palm (16 years), oil palm (six years), and natural tropical forest were set as the control. Three randomly selected plots for agroforestry and monoculture plantation were 0.25 ha (50 × 50 m), respectively, whereas for the natural tropical forest it was 0.09 ha (30 × 30 m). A nondestructive sampling method followed by the allometric equation determined the standing biomass. Organic and shrub layers collected in a square frame (1 × 1 m) were analyzed using the CHN628 series (LECO Corp., MI, USA) for carbon content. Soil bulk density of randomly selected points within the three different layers, that is, 0 to 5, 5 to 10, and 10 to 30 cm were used to determine the total ecosystem carbon (TEC) stock in each agroforestry system which was 79.13, 85.40, and 78.28 Mg C ha−1, respectively. The TEC in the monoculture oil palm was 76.44 and 60.30 Mg C ha−1, whereas natural tropical forest had the highest TEC of 287.29 Mg C ha−1. The forest stand had the highest TEC capacity as compared with the agroforestry and monoculture systems. The impact of planting systems on the TEC showed a statistically significant difference at a 95% confidence interval for the various carbon pools among the agroforestry, monoculture, and natural tropical forests. Therefore, the forest must be sustained because of its higher capacity to store carbon in mitigating global warming.

scholarly journals Impact of Shrimp Ponds on Mangrove Blue Carbon Stocks in Ecuador

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 816
Author(s):  
Jéssica Merecí-Guamán ◽  
Fernando Casanoves ◽  
Diego Delgado-Rodríguez ◽  
Pablo Ochoa ◽  
Miguel Cifuentes-Jara
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Soil Depth ◽  
Basal Area ◽  
Carbon Stocks ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Tidal Range ◽  
Maximum Height ◽  
Shrimp Ponds ◽  
Ecosystem Carbon ◽  
Shrimp Farms

Mangrove forests play an important role in mitigating climate change but are threatened by aquaculture expansion. The inclusion of mangroves in climate change mitigation strategies requires measuring of carbon stocks and the emissions caused by land use change over time. This study provides a synthesis of carbon stocks in mangrove and shrimp ponds in the Gulf of Guayaquil. In this study area, we identified 134,064 ha of mangrove forest and 153,950 ha of shrimp farms. Two mangrove strata were identified according to their height and basal area: medium-statured mangrove (lower height and basal area) and tall mangrove (greater height and basal area). These strata showed statistical differences in aboveground carbon stocks. In both strata, the most abundant mangrove species was Rhizophora mangle. For both strata, trees had a maximum height (>30 m), and their density was greater than 827 ha−1. Total ecosystem level carbon stocks (measured to 1 m soil depth) were 320.9 Mg C ha−1 in medium-statured mangroves and 419.4 Mg C ha−1 in tall mangroves. The differences are attributable to higher basal area, soil organic carbon concentrations and salinity, tidal range, origin of allochthonous material, and herbivory patterns. Mangrove soils represented >80% of the total ecosystem carbon. Ecosystem carbon stocks were lower (81.9 Mg C ha−1) in the shrimp farms, 50% less than in undisturbed mangroves. Our results highlight mangroves as tropical ecosystems with extremely high carbon storage; therefore, they play an important role in mitigating climate change. This research provides a better understanding of how carbon stocks in this gulf are found and can be used for design strategies to protect global natural carbon sinks.

scholarly journals Tree height and tropical forest biomass estimation

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 10491-10529 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. O. Hunter ◽  
M. Keller ◽  
D. Vitoria ◽  
D. C. Morton
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Reference Values ◽  
Tree Height ◽  
Carbon Stocks ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Biomass Estimation ◽  
Height Measurement ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
Allometric Relations

Abstract. Tropical forests account for approximately half of above-ground carbon stored in global vegetation. However, uncertainties in tropical forest carbon stocks remain high because it is costly and laborious to quantify standing carbon stocks. Carbon stocks of tropical forests are determined using allometric relations between tree stem diameter and height and biomass. Previous work has shown that the inclusion of height in biomass allometries, compared to the sole use of diameter, significantly improves biomass estimation accuracy. Here, we evaluate the effect of height measurement error on biomass estimation and we evaluate the accuracy of recently published diameter : height allometries at four sites within the Brazilian Amazon. As no destructive sample of biomass was available at these sites, reference biomass values were based on allometries. We found that the precision of individual tree height measurements ranged from 3 to 20% of total height. This imprecision resulted in a 5–6% uncertainty in biomass when scaled to 1 ha transects. Individual height measurement may be replaced with existing regional and global height allometries. However, we recommend caution when applying these relations. At Tapajós National Forest in the Brazilian state of Pará, using the pantropical and regional allometric relations for height resulted in site biomass 26% to 31% less than reference values. At the other three study sites, the pan-tropical equation resulted in errors of less that 2%, and the regional allometry produced errors of less than 12%. As an alternative to measuring all tree heights or to using regional and pantropical relations, we recommend measuring height for a well distributed sample of about 100 trees per site. Following this methodology, 95% confidence intervals of transect biomass were constrained to within 4.5% on average when compared to reference values.

scholarly journals Tree height and tropical forest biomass estimation

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 8385-8399 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. O. Hunter ◽  
M. Keller ◽  
D. Victoria ◽  
D. C. Morton
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Reference Values ◽  
Tree Height ◽  
Carbon Stocks ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Biomass Estimation ◽  
Height Measurement ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
Allometric Relations

Abstract. Tropical forests account for approximately half of above-ground carbon stored in global vegetation. However, uncertainties in tropical forest carbon stocks remain high because it is costly and laborious to quantify standing carbon stocks. Carbon stocks of tropical forests are determined using allometric relations between tree stem diameter and height and biomass. Previous work has shown that the inclusion of height in biomass allometries, compared to the sole use of diameter, significantly improves biomass estimation accuracy. Here, we evaluate the effect of height measurement error on biomass estimation and we evaluate the accuracy of recently published diameter–height allometries at four areas within the Brazilian Amazon. As no destructive sample of biomass was available at these sites, reference biomass values were based on allometries. We found that the precision of individual tree height measurements ranged from 3 to 20% of total height. This imprecision resulted in a 5–6% uncertainty in biomass when scaled to 1 ha transects. Individual height measurement may be replaced with existing regional and global height allometries. However, we recommend caution when applying these relations. At Tapajos National Forest in the Brazilian state of Pará, using the pantropical and regional allometric relations for height resulted in site biomass 21% and 25% less than reference values. At the other three study sites, the pantropical equation resulted in errors of less that 2%, and the regional allometry produced errors of less than 12%. As an alternative to measuring all tree heights or to using regional and pantropical relations, we recommend measuring height for a well-distributed sample of about 100 trees per site. Following this methodology, 95% confidence intervals of transect biomass were constrained to within 4.5% on average when compared to reference values.

scholarly journals Carbon Stocks in Mangrove Ecosystems of Musi and Banyuasin Estuarine, South Sumatra Province (Stok Karbon Ekosistem Mangrove di Estuarin Musi dan Banyuasin, Provinsi Sumatera Selatan)

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 131
Author(s):  
Melki Melki ◽  
Isnaini Isnaini
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Stock ◽  
Carbon Stocks ◽  
Soil Samples ◽  
Mitigation Strategy ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Mangrove Forests ◽  
Vegetation Types ◽  
Ecosystem Carbon ◽  
Mangrove Ecosystems ◽  
Ecosystem Carbon Stocks

Hutan mangrove di daerah estuari mampu menghasilkan stok karbon yang sangat besar sebagai daerah perlindungan dan pemulihan yang efektif sebagai strategi mitigasi perubahan iklim yang efektif. Pemilihan ekosistem pesisir dalam strategi mitigasi memerlukan kuantifikasi stok karbon untuk menghitung emisi atau penyerapan berdasarkan waktu. Penelitian ini menghitung stok karbon pada ekosistem Musi Estuari Waters (MEW) dan Banyuasin Estuari Water (BEW), Provinsi Sumatera Selatan pada tipe vegetasi yang berbeda dan hubungan variabel lingkungan dengan stok karbon. Di tujuh lokasi dalam MEW dan BEW sampel vegetasi dan tanah. Hasil yang didapatkan adalah nilai yang lebih tinggi dari stok karbon di vegetasi dari lokasi III/MEW (7.600,92 mg.ha-1), stok karbon dalam tanah dari lokasi II/MEW (61.081,87 mg.ha-1) dan stok karbon di ekosistem dari lokasi II (64.548,54 mg.ha-1). Mangrove A. marina merupakan yang paling baik menyimpan stok carbon termasuk antara vegetasi dan tanah karena toleransi salinitas yang rendah. Kata kunci: mangrove, karbon, estuari, Musi, Banyuasin Mangrove forests in estuarines can have exceptionally large carbon stocks and their protection and restoration would constitute an effective mitigation strategy to climate change. Inclusion of coastal ecosystems in mitigation strategies require quantification of carbon stocks in order to calculate emissions or sequestration through time. This study quantified the ecosystem carbon stocks of the Musi Estuarine Waters (MEW) and Banyuasin Estuarine Water (BEW), Province of South Sumatra into different vegetation types and examined relationships of environmental variables with carbon stocks. At seven sites within MEW and BEW of vegetation and soil samples. The results that the higher value of carbon stock in vegetation from Site III/MEW (7.600,92 mg.ha-1), the carbon stock in soil from Site II/MEW (61.081,87 mg.ha-1) and carbon stock in ecosystem from Site II (64.548,54 mg.ha-1). Mangrove of A. marina the best to explain carbon stocks included both vegetation and soil because they can tolerate lower salinity. Keywords: mangrove, carbon, estuarine, Musi, Banyuasin

scholarly journals Long-Term Nitrogen Addition Decreases Soil Carbon Mineralization in an N-Rich Primary Tropical Forest

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 734
Author(s):  
Xiankai Lu ◽  
Qinggong Mao ◽  
Zhuohang Wang ◽  
Taiki Mori ◽  
Jiangming Mo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Biomass ◽  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Soil Carbon ◽  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Carbon Mineralization ◽  
N Deposition ◽  
Soil Carbon Mineralization ◽  
N Additions

Anthropogenic elevated nitrogen (N) deposition has an accelerated terrestrial N cycle, shaping soil carbon dynamics and storage through altering soil organic carbon mineralization processes. However, it remains unclear how long-term high N deposition affects soil carbon mineralization in tropical forests. To address this question, we established a long-term N deposition experiment in an N-rich lowland tropical forest of Southern China with N additions such as NH4NO3 of 0 (Control), 50 (Low-N), 100 (Medium-N) and 150 (High-N) kg N ha−1 yr−1, and laboratory incubation experiment, used to explore the response of soil carbon mineralization to the N additions therein. The results showed that 15 years of N additions significantly decreased soil carbon mineralization rates. During the incubation period from the 14th day to 56th day, the average decreases in soil CO2 emission rates were 18%, 33% and 47% in the low-N, medium-N and high-N treatments, respectively, compared with the Control. These negative effects were primarily aroused by the reduced soil microbial biomass and modified microbial functions (e.g., a decrease in bacteria relative abundance), which could be attributed to N-addition-induced soil acidification and potential phosphorus limitation in this forest. We further found that N additions greatly increased soil-dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and there were significantly negative relationships between microbial biomass and soil DOC, indicating that microbial consumption on soil-soluble carbon pool may decrease. These results suggests that long-term N deposition can increase soil carbon stability and benefit carbon sequestration through decreased carbon mineralization in N-rich tropical forests. This study can help us understand how microbes control soil carbon cycling and carbon sink in the tropics under both elevated N deposition and carbon dioxide in the future.

scholarly journals Synergistic impacts of global warming and thermohaline circulation collapse on amphibians

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julián A. Velasco ◽  
Francisco Estrada ◽  
Oscar Calderón-Bustamante ◽  
Didier Swingedouw ◽  
Carolina Ureta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Thermohaline Circulation ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Meridional Overturning Circulation ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Amphibian Species ◽  
Climate Conditions

AbstractImpacts on ecosystems and biodiversity are a prominent area of research in climate change. However, little is known about the effects of abrupt climate change and climate catastrophes on them. The probability of occurrence of such events is largely unknown but the associated risks could be large enough to influence global climate policy. Amphibians are indicators of ecosystems’ health and particularly sensitive to novel climate conditions. Using state-of-the-art climate model simulations, we present a global assessment of the effects of unabated global warming and a collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) on the distribution of 2509 amphibian species across six biogeographical realms and extinction risk categories. Global warming impacts are severe and strongly enhanced by additional and substantial AMOC weakening, showing tipping point behavior for many amphibian species. Further declines in climatically suitable areas are projected across multiple clades, and biogeographical regions. Species loss in regional assemblages is extensive across regions, with Neotropical, Nearctic and Palearctic regions being most affected. Results underline the need to expand existing knowledge about the consequences of climate catastrophes on human and natural systems to properly assess the risks of unabated warming and the benefits of active mitigation strategies.

scholarly journals Global heat balance and heat uptake in potential temperature coordinates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Hochet ◽  
Rémi Tailleux ◽  
Till Kuhlbrodt ◽  
David Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Water Mass ◽  
Potential Temperature ◽  
Effective Diffusion ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Ocean Heat Uptake ◽  
Cold Temperatures ◽  
Advection Diffusion Equation ◽  
Advection Diffusion ◽  
Heat Uptake

AbstractThe representation of ocean heat uptake in Simple Climate Models used for policy advice on climate change mitigation strategies is often based on variants of the one-dimensional Vertical Advection/Diffusion equation (VAD) for some averaged form of potential temperature. In such models, the effective advection and turbulent diffusion are usually tuned to emulate the behaviour of a given target climate model. However, because the statistical nature of such a “behavioural” calibration usually obscures the exact dependence of the effective diffusion and advection on the actual physical processes responsible for ocean heat uptake, it is difficult to understand its limitations and how to go about improving VADs. This paper proposes a physical calibration of the VAD that aims to provide explicit traceability of effective diffusion and advection to the processes responsible for ocean heat uptake. This construction relies on the coarse-graining of the full three-dimensional advection diffusion for potential temperature using potential temperature coordinates. The main advantage of this formulation is that the temporal evolution of the reference temperature profile is entirely due to the competition between effective diffusivity that is always positive definite, and the water mass transformation taking place at the surface, as in classical water mass analyses literature. These quantities are evaluated in numerical simulations of present day climate and global warming experiments. In this framework, the heat uptake in the global warming experiment is attributed to the increase of surface heat flux at low latitudes, its decrease at high latitudes and to the redistribution of heat toward cold temperatures made by diffusive flux.

scholarly journals Estimating Causal Effects When the Treatment Affects All Subjects Simultaneously: An Application

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Chiara Binelli
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Average Global Temperature ◽  
Causal Impact ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Robust Evidence

Several important questions cannot be answered with the standard toolkit of causal inference since all subjects are treated for a given period and thus there is no control group. One example of this type of questions is the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on global warming. In this paper, we address this question using a machine learning method, which allows estimating causal impacts in settings when a randomized experiment is not feasible. We discuss the conditions under which this method can identify a causal impact, and we find that carbon dioxide emissions are responsible for an increase in average global temperature of about 0.3 degrees Celsius between 1961 and 2011. We offer two main contributions. First, we provide one additional application of Machine Learning to answer causal questions of policy relevance. Second, by applying a methodology that relies on few directly testable assumptions and is easy to replicate, we provide robust evidence of the man-made nature of global warming, which could reduce incentives to turn to biased sources of information that fuels climate change skepticism.

Diatoms in Saline Lakes Paleoclimate and Paleoecology Interpretations

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 149-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik J. Ekdahl
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Water Conservation ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Light Availability ◽  
Ionic Concentration ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Environmental Response

Average global temperatures are predicted to rise over the next century and changes in precipitation, humidity, and drought frequency will likely accompany this global warming. Understanding associated changes in continental precipitation and temperature patterns in response to global change is an important component of long-range environmental planning. For example, agricultural management plans that account for decreased precipitation over time will be less susceptible to the effects of drought through implementation of water conservation techniques.A detailed understanding of environmental response to past climate change is key to understanding environmental changes associated with global climate change. To this end, diatoms are sensitive to a variety of limnologic parameters, including nutrient concentration, light availability, and the ionic concentration and composition of the waters that they live in (e.g. salinity). Diatoms from numerous environments have been used to reconstruct paleosalinity levels, which in turn have been used as a proxy records for regional and local paleoprecipitation. Long-term records of salinity or paleoprecipitation are valuable in reconstructing Quaternary paleoclimate, and are important in terms of developing mitigation strategies for future global climate change. High-resolution paleoclimate records are also important in groundtruthing global climate simulations, especially in regions where the consequences of global warming may be severe.

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