Contribución del Bosque en Cerro Pelado a la Mitigación del Cambio Climático: Almacenamiento y Secuestro de Carbono

This study deals with the estimation of the carbon associated to the Above Ground Biomass, in a permanent plot of measurement located in the Cerro Pelado Tropical Hydrology Observatory in Gamboa, Panama. The objective is to highlight the contribution made by one-hectare of this forest to the local Climate Change mitigation. We employed a relation to carbon storage and sequestration, based on the important species of the tree community with diameter at breast height equal to or greater than 10 cm. It was found an increase in the Above Ground Biomass at the plot, with values of: 193 Mg*ha-1, 218 Mg*ha-11 and 225 Mg*ha-1, for the 2008, 2012 and 2015 censuses, respectively. The net growth in Above Ground Biomass is eliminating approximately 7 to 8 Mg de CO2*ha-1year-1 from the atmosphere, which means that it is acting as a sink and sequestrator of CO2. In this habitat, it is recognizable the important contribution of the Pera arborea species in terms of sustaining carbon sequestration in the Above Ground Biomass.Keywords: Gamboa, Panama, Above Ground Biomass, Climate Change, CO2

Composition, Diversity, and Tree Structure of a Tropical Moist Forest in Gamboa, Colon, Panama

This study focuses on the floristic diversity of the forest trees found at Cerro Pelado Tropical Hydrology Observatory in Gamboa, Colon, Panama. Field work for the quantitative inventory was carried out in November 2012. Data were collected by assessing the status of the forest in terms of tree species diversity and structure from one-hectare plot divided into twenty-five 20 m × 20 m quadrats. All tree species were identified, and their diameters at breast height (dbh) were measured. A total of 384 individuals with (dbh ≥ 10 cm) were counted, corresponding to 28 families, 41 genera, and 43 species of which Pera arborea, Oenocarpus mapora, Amaioua corymbosa, Vantanea depleta, and Matayba apetala were the species with the highest ecological weight, achieving 57.99% of the importance value index. Results were compared with plots from other forests of the Panama Canal watershed in terms of diversity and number of species per area and number of individuals. It was found that the habitat studied has low diversity, with very few species in the study area, even though some of them were very abundant.

The Precipitation Characteristics of ISCCP Tropical Weather States

The authors examine the daytime precipitation characteristics of the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) weather states in the extended tropics (35°S–35°N) for a 10-yr period. The main precipitation dataset used is the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis operational product 3B42 dataset, but Global Precipitation Climatology Project daily data are also used for comparison. It is found that the most convectively active ISCCP weather state (WS1), despite an occurrence frequency below 10%, is the most dominant state with regard to surface precipitation, producing both the largest mean precipitation rates when present and the largest percent contribution to the total precipitation of the tropics; yet, even this weather state appears to not precipitate about half the time, although this may be to some extent an artifact of detection and spatiotemporal matching limitations of the precipitation dataset. WS1 exhibits a modest annual cycle of the domain-average precipitation rate, but notable seasonal shifts in its geographic distribution. The precipitation rates of the other weather states appear to be stronger when occurring before or after WS1. The precipitation rates of the various weather states are different between ocean and land, with WS1 producing higher daytime rates on average over ocean than land, likely because of the larger size and more persistent nature of oceanic WS1s. The results of this study, in addition to advancing the understanding of tropical hydrology, can serve as higher-order diagnostics for evaluating the realism of tropical precipitation distributions in large-scale models.

Speleothem records of changes in tropical hydrology over the Holocene and possible implications for atmospheric methane

Recent speleothem records from the tropics of both hemispheres document a gradual decrease in the intensity of the monsoons in the Northern Hemisphere and increase in the Southern Hemisphere monsoons over the Holocene. These changes are a direct response of the monsoons to precession-driven insolation variability. With regard to atmospheric methane, this shift should result in a decrease in Northern Hemisphere tropical methane emissions and increase in Southern Hemisphere emissions. It is plausible that that overall tropical methane production experienced a minimum in the mid-Holocene because of decreased seasonality in rainfall at the margins of the tropics. Changes in tropical methane production alone might, therefore, explain many of the characteristics of Holocene methane concentrations and isotopic chemistry.