Great trees of the old forests preserve large carbon in their trunks, branches and leaves. When these ancient giants are replaced by logging, forest fires, or other obstacles, the most part of this carbon stock is wasted.
“We really wanted to correct the amount of what it means if an old jungle is young.”
“We know for a long time that the forest’s era is an important part of carbon cycle,” said Simon Basinard, a remote sensing expert at the GFZ Helmulus Center for GFZ Helmoltz Center in Potisdam, Germany. “We really wanted to correct the amount of what it means if an old jungle is young.”
As a result of the study, appeared in Nature environment and evolutionIn addition to the regional pure age of forests around the world between 2010 and 2020, the effects of these changes were also measured on the ground carbon.
To do this, the team developed more than 40,000 forest inventory plots, biomass and height measurements, remote sensing observations, and a new high resolution Global Forest Edge Datastas based on climate data. They linked this information to the European Space Agency and the biomass data of the environmental carbon dioxide observations.
The results point to major regional differences. In the meantime, the forests of Europe, North America and China are currently during the age of 2020 in Amazon, Southeast Asia, and the Congo Basin 10 years ago.
Robin Chazden, a tropical forest environment at Sanshine Coast University in Queensland, Australia, said many recent studies have revealed that forests are decreasing, but the new analysis corrects the amount of change globally. “It is a significant and very important concept to understand because it has global implications, and it indicates where these trends are strong in the world.”
Carbon impact
The study identifies tropicals, in which some of the world’s oldest forests are, as an important region where young forests are replacing old people.
On average, forests, which are at least 200 years old, are 77.8 tonnes of carbon per hectare, while in terms of forests under 20 years, 23.8 tonnes per hectare.
However, the implications of carbon search are more important. For example, rapidly growing young forests, especially in tropical areas, where the difference is 20 times, can absorb carbon faster than the old forests. But even this rate of securities is not enough to replace the old forest carbon stock.
Finally, the basinard said, “When it comes to a jungle like a carbon sink, the stock is more important than the sink factor.”
“It is usually more efficient than the cost, carbon- and biological diversity than trying to regenerate it after the fact.”
In the study, only 1 % of the total area of the forest moved from old to young, mainly in tropical areas. However, this small percentage contributed more than one -third of the losing carbon in documentation in the research – it is about 140 million of the total 380 million tons.
“This is usually the higher price, carbon- and biological diversity to keep the forest standing in comparison to trying to rebuild it after the fact. I think this dissertation shows it well.” “But we need to pull extra carbon from the environment, and keep the trees back in the landscape we have the most effective solution to remove carbon.”
He said that the increasing resolution and details provided by the study can help experts better understand the way to effectively manage forests as a climate solution. “But forest -based solutions are not an alternative to reduction of fuel emissions.”
Open the questions
When the carbon stored in the trees is released in the environment, it depends on what happens after removing the trees from the forest. Carbon can be stored in wood products for a long time or slowly released by decomposition. Burning, whether in the forest fire, through slash and burning farming, or as fuel, releases carbon almost immediately.
“I think there is a research difference here: what is the destiny of Bedmas being removed?” Asked the basinard, pointing out that these effects have not yet been kept globally.
Chazden said that the difference between natural, organized and planting forests, which makes this study together, and also presently presents: “All the forests are being put in this basket not only carbon but also of biological diversity.”
He would also like to see future research on the transfer of the jungle to focus on carbon issues: “Biological diversity matters are really important, and numerically it is not as easy to show its results as it is for carbon.”
Basanard agreed, “We are seeing only one metric, which is carbon, but the forest is more than that. It is biological diversity, water, it is a community, it is many things.”
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