Geography of Global Forest Carbon Stocks & Dynamics

Sassan S Saatchi1, Yifan Yu2, Liang Xu1, Yan Yang3, Alexander Fore2, Sangram Ganguly4, Ramakrishna R Nemani4, Gong Zhang4, Michael A Lefsky5, Guoqing Sun6, Christopher W Woodall7, Erik Naesset8 and Ulrike Seibt9, (1)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States, (3)University of Delaware, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Newark, DE, United States, (4)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, United States, (5)Colorado State University, Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Fort Collins, CO, United States, (6)University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, United States, (7)Northern Research Station, Durham, United States, (8)Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, Ås, Norway, (9)University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Abstract:
Spatially explicit distribution of carbon stocks and dynamics in global forests can greatly reduce the uncertainty in the terrestrial portion of the global carbon cycle by improving estimates of emissions and uptakes from land use activities, and help with green house gas inventory at regional and national scales. Here, we produce the first global distribution of carbon stocks in living woody biomass at ~ 100 m (1-ha) resolution for circa 2005 from a combination of satellite observations and ground inventory data. The total carbon stored in live woody biomass is estimated to be 337 PgC with 258 PgC in aboveground and 79 PgC in roots, and partitioned globally in boreal (20%), tropical evergreen (50%), temperate (12%), and woodland savanna and shrublands (15%). We use a combination of satellite observations of tree height, remote sensing data on deforestation and degradation to quantify the dynamics of these forests at the biome level globally and provide geographical distribution of carbon storage dynamics in terms sinks and sources globally.
Back to: Remote Sensing of Terrestrial Carbon Fluxes II