Simulation experiments with late quaternary carbon storage in mid-latitude forest communities
The assumption was tested that forest biomass in communities on the modern landscape is equivalent to that in similar communities on the late-Quaternary landscape. Forest carbon storage dynamics during the past 16,000 years were derived from a mathematical model of forest processes and individual tree species behavior. Modern pollen and climate data sets provided pollen-climate transfer functions to generate model driving variables from fossil pollen records. Climate variables were estimated from fossil pollen stratigraphies in Tennessee, Ohio, and Michigan. Only simulated early postglacial warming produced the large carbon gains one would expect in mixed deciduous-coniferous forests from unglaciated regions. The simulated mid-Holocene warming generated little carbon storage response by temperate deciduous forests and large carbon gains in northern hardwood-conifer forests, unlike the linear relationship expected when equivalence is assumed between modern and prehistoric forests. Late-glacial, mid-latitude forests may have contained more biomass than would be expected from equivalent forests on the modern landscape. Simulations of alternate hypotheses to explain the enhanced late-glacial cannot distinguish effects of reduced seasonal temperature extremes from effects of changing species' temperature tolerances. 84 references, 5 figures, 2 tables.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 6312727
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-840181-1; ON: DE85000979
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: American Geophysical Union Monography meeting on carbon dioxide through geologic time, Tarpon Spring, FL, USA, 15 Jan 1984
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Quaternary vegetation history of the Mississippi embayment
Late quaternary vegetation history of the eastern Highland Rim and adjacent Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee
Related Subjects
CARBON CYCLE
TEMPERATURE EFFECTS
FORESTS
BIOMASS
QUATERNARY PERIOD
CLIMATES
POLLEN
SIMULATION
STORAGE
VARIATIONS
CENOZOIC ERA
ENERGY SOURCES
GAMETES
GEOLOGIC AGES
GERM CELLS
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
510100* - Environment
Terrestrial- Basic Studies- (-1989)
500400 - Environment
Atmospheric- Thermal Effluents Monitoring & Transport- (-1989)