Modeling the Impacts of Major Forest Disturbances on the Earth's Coupled Carbon-Climate System, and the Capacity of Forests to Meet Future Demands for Wood, Fuel, and Fiber
George
Hurtt, University of Maryland, gchurtt@umd.edu
(Presenter)
Jae
Edmonds, JGCRI, jae@pnnl.gov
Jeffrey
Chambers, LBL, chambers@lbl.gov
Steve
Frolking, University of New Hampshire, steve.frolking@unh.edu
Yannick
LePage, JGCRI, yannick.lepage@pnnl.gov
Justin
Fisk, University of Maryland, fisk@umd.edu
Louise
Chini, UMD, lchini@umd.edu
Robinson
Negron-Juarez, Tulane, rjuarez@tulane.edu
Katelyn
Dolan, UMD, kdolan@umd.edu
Steve
Flanagan, UMD, sflanaga@umd.edu
Qing
Ying, UMD, qying@umd.edu
Doug
Morton, NASA, doug.morton@nasa.gov
Jim
Collatz, NASA, jim.collatz@nasa.gov
Anthony
Anthony, JGCRI, anthony.janetos@pnnl.gov
The carbon balance of forested ecosystems are fundamentally linked to cycles of disturbance and recovery. Two of the most extreme natural disturbances are tropical cyclones and Amazon forest fires. While an average of more than 80 tropical storms and hurricanes occur per year, the number, severity, and impacts of these storms varies though time and may be increasing, while the committed carbon emissions from a single large storm such as Katrina can be as large as the net annual carbon sequestration of U.S. forest trees. Forest fires are a growing concern too, particularly in the sensitive Amazon region where they potentially compound the risk of forest die-back from climate change. The overall science goal of this project is to understand how altered natural disturbance rates could affect the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems, and as a consequence, the development strategies designed to mitigate against future climate change. In particular, we address two major science questions: (1) How could potentially altered disturbance rates from tropical cyclones and Amazonian fires affect vegetation, carbon stocks and fluxes, and the development of climate change mitigation strategies? (2) How does remote sensing data quantity and quality constrain model projections of the effects of altered disturbance rates on vegetation, carbon stocks and fluxes, and the development of climate change mitigation strategies?
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Poster Session 1-B
(Tue 4:30 PM)
Associated Project(s):
Poster Location ID: 6
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