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Working together to inspire action on climate change.
Carbon Budget
In the past 40 years, human activities have caused a 15% increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Coupled with a similarly dramatic increase in other greenhouse gases, this has had a profound effect on global climate and ecosystems. Tropical forests play a key part in regulating how much CO2 is in the atmosphere – they hold approximately 25% of the planet's terrestrial carbon.
The factors governing the size of forest carbon pools are extremely complex, yet it is important to understand them in order to predict climate change and its effects on the global carbon budget.
- A carbon pool (or carbon stock) is any system that holds, or stores, carbon. If the size of a carbon pool decreases, carbon is released; if it increases, carbon is taken up or sequestered. Forests are a very important carbon pool.
- The global carbon budget is the balance of exchanges of carbon between different carbon reservoirs, for example a forest and the atmosphere.
There is currently a lack of knowledge of the role of forests in the global carbon budget and very little data about short- and long-term changes in forest carbon pools. As part of the HSBC Climate Partnership, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) aims to create a more comprehensive picture of the largest and most important forest carbon stocks and how they are likely to vary over time.
This project will involve detailed research at 12 sites in tropical and temperate forests:
Field data collection
- Assess soil carbon pools, which are estimated to account for over 50% of forest carbon and are currently very poorly understood;
- Monitor tree growth and litter production (leaves, flowers, fruits, etc) annually to assess changes in carbon pools and fluxes in response to climate variations;
- Assess coarse woody debris carbon pools: any alterations in decomposition rates caused by climate changes will strongly impact these pools;
- Census woody climbing plants, which are thought to be particularly sensitive indicators of climate change and can greatly modify forest structure and tree carbon pools through their competition with trees;
- Monitor natural and human-influenced changes in climatic and atmospheric conditions at the study sites.
Detailed carbon pool and carbon flux analyses
- Calculate the amounts of carbon stored in different above-ground and below-ground pools;
- Investigate geographic variation in carbon pools among sites and its relationship with variation in soil, climate and other factors;
- Analyse the relationship of year-to-year variations in climate to changes in tree growth, tree mortality, and related carbon pools and fluxes;
- Identify differences among various types of plant species in response to climate change, and the effects on the ecosystem.
Extrapolation
- Use detailed data from the study sites to develop relationships with satellite measurements of those sites;
- Extrapolate to other regions using these relationships and additional satellite data.
Latin America Projects
Countering climate impacts in Brazil
WWF's focus on this project will be adaptation and mitigation surrounding the possible impacts of climate change on the people and environment of the region.
Carbon Budget
In the past 40 years, human activities have caused a 15% increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Panama Canal Watershed
The Panama Canal is the most important commercial waterway in the world.
