Carbon stock and density of northern boreal and temperate forests

AIM: To infer a forest carbon density map at 0.01° resolution from a radar remote sensing product for the estimation of carbon stocks in Northern Hemisphere boreal and temperate forests. LOCATION: The study area extends from 30° N to 80° N, covering three forest biomes – temperate broadleaf and mixe...

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Published in:	Global ecology and biogeography Vol. 23; no. 3; pp. 297 - 310
Main Authors:	Thurner, Martin, Beer, Christian, Santoro, Maurizio, Carvalhais, Nuno, Wutzler, Thomas, Schepaschenko, Dmitry, Shvidenko, Anatoly, Kompter, Elisabeth, Ahrens, Bernhard, Levick, Shaun R, Schmullius, Christiane
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.03.2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Blackwell Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects:	Animal and plant ecology Animal, plant and microbial ecology biogeochemical cycles Biological and medical sciences Biomass Biomes Boreal forest Boreal forests branches Broadleaved evergreen forests Carbon carbon density map carbon monitoring carbon sinks Coniferous forests ecosystems forest biomass forest carbon stocks Forest ecology Forestry Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology General aspects General aspects. Techniques General forest ecology Generalities. Production, biomass. Quality of wood and forest products. General forest ecology global carbon cycle growing stock volume inventories leaves Mixed forests monitoring Remote sensing roots Russia SAR remote sensing Synecology synthetic aperture radar Teledetection and vegetation maps temperate forest Temperate forests uncertainty United States wood density United States Russia USA Europe SAR remote sensing Boreal forest temperate forest Biogeography carbon monitoring Ecology Biomass growing stock volume Carbon Density Remote sensing carbon density map Carbon cycle forest biomass Maps global carbon cycle forest carbon stocks Temperate forests Stock
ISSN:	1466-822X, 1466-8238, 1466-8238, 1466-822X
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Summary:	AIM: To infer a forest carbon density map at 0.01° resolution from a radar remote sensing product for the estimation of carbon stocks in Northern Hemisphere boreal and temperate forests. LOCATION: The study area extends from 30° N to 80° N, covering three forest biomes – temperate broadleaf and mixed forests (TBMF), temperate conifer forests (TCF) and boreal forests (BFT) – over three continents (North America, Europe and Asia). METHODS: This study is based on a recently available growing stock volume (GSV) product retrieved from synthetic aperture radar data. Forest biomass and spatially explicit uncertainty estimates were derived from the GSV using existing databases of wood density and allometric relationships between biomass compartments (stem, branches, roots, foliage). We tested the resultant map against inventory‐based biomass data from Russia, Europe and the USA prior to making intercontinent and interbiome carbon stock comparisons. RESULTS: Our derived carbon density map agrees well with inventory data at regional scales (r² = 0.70–0.90). While 40.7 ± 15.7 petagram of carbon (Pg C) are stored in BFT, TBMF and TCF contain 24.5 ± 9.4 Pg C and 14.5 ± 4.8 Pg C, respectively. In terms of carbon density, we found 6.21 ± 2.07 kg C m⁻² retained in TCF and 5.80 ± 2.21 kg C m⁻² in TBMF, whereas BFT have a mean carbon density of 4.00 ± 1.54 kg C m⁻². Indications of a higher carbon density in Europe compared with the other continents across each of the three biomes could not be proved to be significant. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: The presented carbon density and corresponding uncertainty map give an insight into the spatial patterns of biomass and stand as a new benchmark to improve carbon cycle models and carbon monitoring systems. In total, we found 79.8 ± 29.9 Pg C stored in northern boreal and temperate forests, with Asian BFT accounting for 22.1 ± 8.3 Pg C.
Bibliography:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/geb.12125 Appendix S1 GLC2000 classes and their aggregation to leaf types. Appendix S2 Spatial distribution of biomass compartment carbon density in Northern Hemisphere boreal and temperate forests and its corresponding relative uncertainty. Appendix S3 Intercomparison of this study's (MPI) and IIASA forest enterprise carbon density data for different bioclimatic zones in Russia. Appendix S4 Modelling of branch, root and foliage biomass out of stem biomass and other predictors using generalized additive models. istex:380B0DA23724397586584CB03AC1FA3DF14D8C76 ArticleID:GEB12125 ark:/67375/WNG-2HB910QP-1 European Space Agency (ESA) ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 14 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1466-822X 1466-8238 1466-8238 1466-822X
DOI:	10.1111/geb.12125