A large and persistent carbon sink in the world's forests

Yude Pan (1) , Richard A. Birdsey (1) , Jingyun Fang (2) , Richard Houghton (3) , Pekka E. Kauppi (4) , Werner A. Kurz (5) , Oliver L. Phillips (6) , Anatoly Shvidenko (7) , Simon L. Lewis (6) , Josep G. Canadell (8) , Philippe Ciais (9, 10) , Robert B. Jackson (11) , Stephen W. Pacala (12) , A. David Mcguire (13) , Shilong Piao (14) , Aapo Rautiainen (4) , Stephen Sitch (6) , Daniel Hayes (15)

1 U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service
2 University of Peking
3 Woods Hole Research Center
4 Helsingin yliopisto = Helsingfors universitet = University of Helsinki
5 Canadian Forest Service - CFS (CANADA)
6 University of Leeds
7 IIASA - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [Laxenburg]
8 CSIRO-MAR - CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
9 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
10 ICOS-ATC - ICOS-ATC
11 Duke University [Durham]
12 Princeton University
13 UAF - University of Alaska [Fairbanks]
14 Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education
15 ORNL - Oak Ridge National Laboratory [Oak Ridge]

The terrestrial carbon sink has been large in recent decades, but its size and location remain uncertain. Using forest inventory data and long-term ecosystem carbon studies, we estimate a total forest sink of 2.4±0.4 petagrams of carbon per year (Pg C year^-1) globally for 1990 to 2007. We also estimate a source of 1.3±0.7 Pg C year^-1 from tropical land-use change, consisting of a gross tropical deforestation emission of 2.9±0.5 Pg C year^-1 partially compensated by a carbon sink in tropical forest regrowth of 1.6±0.5 Pg C year^-1. Together, the fluxes comprise a net global forest sink of 1.1±0.8 Pg C year^-1, with tropical estimates having the largest uncertainties. Our total forest sink estimate is equivalent in magnitude to the terrestrial sink deduced from fossil fuel emissions and land-use change sources minus ocean and atmospheric sinks.

Domains: Environmental Sciences

Yude Pan, Richard A. Birdsey, Jingyun Fang, Richard Houghton, Pekka E. Kauppi, et al.. A large and persistent carbon sink in the world's forests. Science, 2011, 333 (6045), pp.988-993. ⟨10.1126/science.1201609⟩. ⟨cea-00819253⟩