Costs of creating carbon sinks in the US

New models of the dynamic patterns of carbon uptake by forest ecosystems allow improvements in the estimation of the costs of carbon sequestration in the US. The preliminary results of an effort to update an earlier study indicate that conversion of environmentally sensitive and economically marginal cropland and pastureland in the US could offset as much as 25% of current US emissions at costs of $US 8--60 per short ton

Global maps of twenty-first century forest carbon fluxes

Managing forests for climate change mitigation requires action by diverse stakeholders undertaking different activities with overlapping objectives and spatial impacts. To date, several forest carbon monitoring systems have been developed for different regions using various data, methods and assumptions, making it difficult to evaluate mitigation performance consistently across scales. Here, we integrate ground and Earth observation data to map annual forest-related greenhouse gas emissions and removals globally at a spatial resolution of 30 m over the years 2001–2019. We estimate that global forests were a net carbon sink of −7.6 ± 49 GtCO2e yr−1, reflecting a balance between gross carbon removals (−15.6 ± 49 GtCO2e yr−1) and gross emissions from deforestation and other disturbances (8.1 ± 2.5 GtCO2e yr−1). The geospatial monitoring framework introduced here supports climate policy development by promoting alignment and transparency in setting priorities and tracking collective progress towards forest-specific climate mitigation goals with both local detail and global consistency

Consistent land- and atmosphere-based U.S. carbon sink estimates

International audienc

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

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) globally for 1990 to 2007. We also estimate a source of 1.3 +- 0.7 PG C/year from tropical land-use change, consisting of a gross tropical deforestation emission of 2.9 +- 0.5 Pg C/year partially compensated by a carbon sink in tropical forest regrowth of 1.6 +- 0.5 Pg C/year. Together, the fluxes comprise a net global forest sink of 1.1 +- 0.8 Pg C/year, 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