CO2 balance of boreal, temperate, and tropical forests derived from a global database
- University of Antwerp
- Second University of Naples
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
- University of Tuscia
- LSCE, Orme des Merisiers
- University of Edinburgh
- CNR-ISAFOM
- Faculte Universitaire des Sciences Agronomiques de Gembloux
- Technische Universitat Dresden
- University College, Dublin
- INRA Kourou - UMR EcoFog
- Tulane University
- Pennsylvania State University
- University of Illinois
- Universitate Amsterdam
- INRA EEF
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Upsalla, Sweden
- University of Minnesota
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
- Center of Ecology and Hydrology, Edinburgh
- USDA Forest Service
- University of Helsinki
- Alterra
- Lund University, Sweden
- Finnish Meteorological institute
- Oregon State University
- Universita di Bologna
- Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
- Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal
- Universita degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
- University of California, Berkeley
- Bolzano, Agency for the Environment
- University of Oxford
- INRA EPHYSE
- University of New Hampshire
- CIRAD
- National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan
- CEAM, Valencia, Spain
- Joint Research Centre, Italy
- Riso National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark
Forests sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon. However, considerable uncertainties remain regarding the fate of this carbon over both short and long timescales. Relevant data to address these uncertainties have been and are being collected at many sites around the world, but synthesis of these data is still sparse. To facilitate synthesis activities, we have assembled a comprehensive global database for forest ecosystems, which includes carbon budget variables (fluxes and stocks), ecosystem traits (e.g. leaf area index, age) as well as ancillary site information such as management regime, climate and soil characteristics. This can be used to: quantify global, regional to biome-specific carbon-budgets, to re-examine established relationships, test emerging hypotheses about ecosystem functioning (e.g. a constant NEP to GPP), and provide benchmarks for model evaluations. Our synthesis highlighted that globally, gross primary production of forests benefited from higher temperatures and precipitation whereas net primary production saturated beyond a threshold of 1500 mm precipitation or a mean annual temperature of 10 C. The global pattern in NEP was found insensitive to climate and appears to be mainly determined by non-climatic conditions such as successional stage, management, site history and site disturbance. At the biome level, only the carbon fluxes in temperate humid evergreen and temperate humid deciduous forests were sufficiently robust. All other biomes still need further study to reduce uncertainties in their carbon balance. Carbon budgets of boreal semi-arid and tropical semi-arid forests would benefit most from additional data inputs. Closing the CO2-balances of specific biomes required the introduction of closure terms. These closure terms were substantial for all biomes and suggested that to better close carbon balances, more data are needed especially on respiratory processes, advection and on non-CO2 carbon fluxes.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 931957
- Journal Information:
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 13; ISSN 1354-1013
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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