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Will Forests Help Mitigate Climate Change?

Yupu Zhao
Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster, PA 17604 11/23/2009

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It seems commonsensical that more forests are good for the environment. Indeed, forests provide unparalleled ecological and socioeconomical services to natural systems and human society. Not only do diverse species find shelters in the forests, the livelihoods of many individuals also depend upon food, fuels, and medicines produced from the forest. In the case of global climate change, forests absorb and store large amount of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to the planetary warming today. As a result, a host of large reforestation projects has been proposed in different parts of the world as a possible strategy to mitigate climate change. However, will planting more forests automatically result in a cooler climate? What if the net climate impact of a forest has dimensions other than carbon sequestration from the atmosphere? Is it possible if we are actually exacerbating the climate warming by growing forests in the wrong place? All these questions need to be answered before forestry activities can be legitimately incorporated into todays climate mitigation policies. This article will first discuss the current climate change challenge and how forest ecosystems relate to it. It will then review the benefits and concerns of using forestry activities as a climate mitigation strategy. I will end by exploring future options for climate-friendly forestry practices. Global climate change is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges faced by mankind. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) asserts in its 4th assessment report that the world has warmed by nearly 1 C since pre-industrial times and the rising trend is still accelerating (9). Climate change has resulted in an array of problems: as more greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere and trap excess heat, the increasing global temperature causes
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melting polar ice-caps and glaciers, rising sea-levels, and more frequent-occurring extreme natural disasters such as hurricanes and droughts. These problems in turn threaten our water supply, food security, and public health. Overwhelming scientific evidence has reaffirmed that human activities, particularly burning fossil fuels and mass deforestation, have caused most of the warming in the past century. Scientists have warned that without solid actions to curb emissions in the immediate future, the global average temperature is likely to increase 2 4 C further by the end of 21th century. This magnitude change may bring irreversible and catastrophic changes to human civilization (9). Beginning to realize the dire consequences of inaction, many climate mitigation strategies have been proposed by scientists and politicians alike in recent years. Yet, many of these options, such as mass deployment of renewable energies, or developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) that would inject CO2 directly into underground geological formation, require huge investment in research and development (R&D) and are not likely to make significant impact on global carbon emissions in the short term. The IPCC report noted that preventing deforestation and better reforestation programs would be the mitigation option with the largest and most immediate carbon stock impact globally (9). Consequently, increasing attention has been given to policies that influence forestry and land-management practices, both domestically and abroad. The on-going United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations have focused on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD). In the US, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill), which was passed in the US House of Representatives in
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June, 2009, proposed a cap-and-trade system that would allow US corporations to offset their carbon emission through forestry and land-management activities. The prevailing bill in the Senate, proposed by Senator John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, also suggests a similar forestry carbon offset policy (8). Why do forestry activities receive special attentions from experts of IPCC and other institutions? This is because forests play an essential role in the global carbon cycles, in at least three ways. First, forests are major contributors to the terrestrial carbon sink as they cover nearly 30% of the global land surface. Annually, terrestrial ecosystems remove approximately 3 billion tons of anthropogenic carbon through net growth, absorbing nearly 33% of all carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning and land-use change (1, 2). Second, forest ecosystems store large reservoirs of carbon. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organizations report on global forest resources in 2005, the total amount of carbon stored in forests is twice as much as it in the atmosphere (3). Third, not only are forests a major absorber and storehouse for carbon dioxide, they have been adding CO2 into the atmosphere as deforestation and forest degradation intensified throughout the world, especially in the tropics. The IPCC 4th assessment report estimated emissions from deforestation in the 1990s at a striking 5.8 Gt CO2/year (9). According to the Union of Concerned Scientists data, the tropic deforestation alone accounts for about 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (6)! Because of the apparent climate protection role of forests, many countries have established ambitious forestry projects. Josep Candell and Michael Raupach, both scientists at Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organizations, have characterized four major strategies
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to mitigate carbon emissions through forestry activities (2). First is to increase forested land area through reforestation. For example, China has implemented an ambitious reforestation program over the past few decades, through which the country has increased its forest area of 200 million hectares by planting 4 million hectares annually (11). The second strategy is to increase the carbon density of existing forests at both stand and landscape scales. This can be achieved by implementing longer harvesting cycles or reduced disturbances in the forest. The third strategy is to expand the use of forests products (e.g., timber, biomass) that replace fossil fuels CO2 emissions. The final strategy has the highest potential for cost-effective contributions to climate protection in the near term: to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (2). So, as long as we keep planting trees, enforce fire suppression and harvest exclusion, and avoiding deforestation and forest degradation, we can save us from overheating the earth, or at least slow down the pace of global warming, right? Not so fast! Without doubt, growing a forest can help absorb CO2 from atmosphere and thus slow down the increasing of atmospheric CO2 concentrations; however, the net climate impact of a forest includes factors beyond carbon sequestration alone. It may seem counterintuitive to think that increasing forest cover may not help attenuate climate change, but many scientists today, including Rob Jackson from Duke University and his colleagues in the Global Carbon Project, concur that it really depends on the location and type of the forests. Forests not only affect climate change through carbon sequestration, they also affect biophysical properties of the local land surface to a considerable extent. The most important properties that are relevant to our discussions are reflectivity and evaporation (7).
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Reflectivity, or albedo, is a measure of the percentage of sunlight reflected back by the receiving surface. It is a critical concept in the climate science because various earth surfaces possess differential abilities to reflect sunlight and, accordingly, they exert impact on the regional air and surface temperatures. Generally speaking, dark surfaces (e.g. forest canopies) reflect less solar radiation back into the atmosphere than light surface (e.g. snow or ice). For example, reforestation projects in boreal regions where it was used to be dominated by snow or ice would generate little (or even negative) climate mitigation benefits as dark forest canopies absorb more heat regionally. Evaporation is also important. In humid regions, such as the tropics, the forest ecosystems maintain high rates of evapotransporation. The elevated water vapor can help to form clouds. Clouds generally have higher albedo than the land surface below, so additional cloud formation would reflect more sunlight back to space. This process causes cooling effect on the land surface. The real question then comes to, how do these two forces interact with each other? We need to examine them in the context of 3 major forest ecosystems: tropics, boreal, and temperate forests (see Figure I). Tropical forests contain nearly a quarter of the carbon stored in the terrestrial biosphere. They have high net primary productivity and sequester large volumes of carbon per year. The low albedo of dark forest canopies causes surfaces warming, but as mentioned earlier, the forest ecosystems have high rates of evapotransporation which help to form clouds that can lower the regional temperature (see Figure II A). According to climate model simulation studies performed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the surface warming resulted from low albedo
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is offset by cooling induced by strong evaporative forcing (1). Thus in this case, the biophysical characteristics of the tropic forests reinforce the benefits of carbon sequestration and climate mitigation (7). In boreal forest regions, however, the results show the opposite. Even though colder temperature and less radiation limit tree growth and annual carbon uptake in the region, the boreal ecosystems do have high carbon content in soil, permafrost, and wetland peats (1). Yet, unlike the tropics, the boreal region is covered by snow for considerable portion of the year. Snow has relatively high albedo which reflects high level of sunlight back to space. If boreal lands were to be converted into coniferous forests, it is very likely that surface warming would occur. In the meantime, the relatively dry and cold climate in the region limits the plant evapotransporation rate and thus constrains its potential for cloud formation (see Figure II C). Therefore, the biophysics effect in boreal forests may actually negate the benefits of carbon sequestration and cause regional warming. Such a phenomenon may have happened before on earth. In an earlier study, researchers have suggested the possibility that forest expansion during the mid-Holocene 6000 years ago may have helped accelerate the warming (1). Temperate forests, however, present a more complicated picture. There are conflicting results from a number of climate model studies. Some researchers support reforestation programs in temperate areas and assert that more evapotranspiration may help to form clouds and increase rainfall, and both would foster surface cooling. Yet, other scientists claim that substituting forests with agriculture or grassland would cool the temperature as forests absorb mores sunlight that can be delivered to the atmosphere (see Figure II B). Researchers from Lawrence Livermore
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National Laboratory and the Carnegie Institution in Stanford University discovered that planting trees between 30 to 50 degrees latitude resulted in a global mean surface temperature increase by 0.4 C. They also suggested that the resulting regional warming in North America and Eurasia could be as high as 4.4 C (5)! Yet, it is still inconclusive whether growing forests in temperate regions would have an overall positive or negative impact on climate change. Besides the two competing effects of land cover change on climate, there are great risks associated with carbon storage in the forests. After all, forests are dynamic systems; they are susceptible to potential disturbances such as forest fire and insect outbreaks. A major wildfire, like the ones that happen frequently in the American West, can destroy thousands of acres of forest land and release millions of tons of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere over just a short period of time. Furthermore, the rising global temperature would create longer and hotter dry seasons, which increasing wildfire frequency and magnitude. If we ignore the potential threats of frequent occurring disruptive events for a second and look at the longer time scale, we still find ourselves confronted with the fact that the effect of forests sequestering CO2 dwindle over time after the initial decades of booming growth. Yet, the darkness of these forests persists and continues absorbing abundant sunlight. This has led some researchers to postulate that planting a forest in the temperate region might cool the Earth for a few decades, but would lead to warming in the long term (5). While the scientific community today is worried about the future size and stability of the terrestrial carbon sink as the climate conditions continue worsening, some researchers point out the fertilization effect of increased atmospheric CO2. Their question is: will more CO2 help
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amplify the photosynthesis mechanism in individual tree species and foster better tree growth and consequently greater CO2 sequestration? Maybe. There are large uncertainties in how the elevated atmospheric CO2 will affect the forest net primary productivity (NPP). In fact, important as CO2 is to control forest growth, it is only one piece of the entire puzzle. We may expect an overall moderate boost in NPP in the forest as result of rising CO2, but limited water, nutrients, and radiation would eventually retard further forest growth, even if the atmospheric CO2 concentrations would double or triple in the next few decades. Some may wonder, since nutrients may become a problem that limits forest growth, if we can just fertilize to the forest? Well, other problems may emerge. For example, soils that contain high level of nitrogen fertilizers tend to give off nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is much more potent than CO2 itself. It seems that we are trapped in this conundrum of whether growing more forests will help us mitigate the current climate warming or exacerbate the problem. Or if it does play a positive role, is it just a temporary solution or can it also benefit the future generations? So what can be done? Various recent studies seem to agree on at least three initial steps to address the issue of how to properly use forestry activities to mitigate climate change. First, it is essential to avoid deforestation and forest degradation in the tropical regions. There is a consensus in the scientific community that tropical forests provide the greatest value for slowing climate warming. Forests in the region combine a rapid pace of carbon uptake with biophysical features that are beneficial in many settings (7). Some progress has been made in some tropical regions. Only recently, for example, the Brazilian government announced
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proposals for voluntary CO2 reductions of 38-42% by 2020, partly by continuing to battle illegal deforestation in the Amazon (10). However, from August 2008 to June this year, 7,000 km2 were still deforested in Amazon alone! Much more effort need to be put into protecting tropical forests in the coming decades. In addition, forest restoration and afforestation in the tropics should also be encouraged. Second, policy-makers should be cautious with proposed forestry projects in boreal and temperate systems, given the uncertainties in their climate benefits. In the coming years, increasing global carbon prices and aggressive emission reduction targets will undoubtedly make CO2-related forestry activities a multi-billion dollar industry (7). Yet, in boreal and temperate regions, some of these projects are less likely to provide climate cooling effects at local to global scales. Therefore, rules that ensure thorough analyses of the true cooling potential of forestry projects are vital for sound future carbon offset policies. Third, future research into the strength and duration of the terrestrial carbon sink is highly needed, especially for tropical forests (11). Additionally, more studies should focus on the real regional climate effects of temperate forests, given that the forest biophysical interactions with atmosphere in the region are still poorly understood. Moreover, much of our knowledge of forest impacts on climate comes from models. Yet, global models of the biosphere-atmosphere system are still in their infancy (4) and many unforeseen feedbacks may not be not well represented in the models. Thus, new models that synthesize multiple variables and account for intricate feedbacks and responses in the natural systems are essential for us to better understand the global carbon cycle and its implications for future climate.
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In sum, to combat climate change in the 21st century, we need to devise appropriate policies based on sound science with the sense of emergency. Solving the problem also requires solutions that are not limited to free emission energy sources or behavioral changes. Forests may be part of the problem, but it can also be part of the solutions.

Bibliography 1. Bonan, G. B., 2009. Forests and climate change: forcings, feedbacks, and the climate benefits of forests. Science 320: 1444-1449. 2. Canadell J. G., and M. R. Raupach. 2009. Managing forests for climate change mitigation. Science 320: 1456-1457. 3. FAO, 2005, Global Forest Resource Assessment, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 1-320 pp. 4. Foley, J. A., R. DeFries, G. P. Asner, C. Barford, G. Bonan, S. R. Carpenter, F. S. Chapin, M. T. Coe, G. C. Daily, H. K. Gibbs, J. H. Helkowski, T. Holloway, E. A. Howard, C. J. Kucharik, C. Monfreda, J. A. Patz, I. C. Prentice, N. Ramankutty, and P K. Snyder. 2005. Global consequences of land use. Science 22:570-574. 5. Gibbard, S., K. Caldeira, G. Bala, T. J. Phillips, and M. Wickett. 2005. Climate effects of global land cover change. Geophysical Research Letters 320: 237-242. 6. "Global Warming 101" Union of Concerned Scientists. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. <http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/global_warming_101/>.
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7. Jackson, R. B., J. T. Randerson, J. G. Canadell, R. G. Anderson, R. Avissar, D. D. Baldocchi, G. B. Bonan, K. Caldira, N. S. Diffenbaugh, C. B. Field, B. A. Hungate, E. G. Jobbagy, L. M. Kueppers, M. D. Nosetto, and D. E. Pataki. 2008. Protecting climate with forests. Environmental Research Letters 3: 044006. 8. Meizlish, M., "Policy Note: U.S. Climate Legislation & Forestry Offsets." New Forests. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. <http://www.newforests-us.com/news/pdf/articles/PolicyOctUS. php>. 9. Pachauri, R. K., A. Reisinger, 2007, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva, 1-104 pp. 10. Phillips, T. "Brazil celebrates 45% reduction in Amazon deforestation." The Guardian. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/13/brazil-amazon-deforestationclimate-change-copenhagen>. 11. Sukumar, R. 2008. Forest research for the 21st century. Sceince 320: 1395.

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Figures and Tables

Figure I. Geographic distribution of natural vegetation that would most likely exist in the absence of human land use (10).

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Figure II. Climate services in (A) tropical, (B) temperate, and (C) boreal forests. Text boxes indicate key processes with uncertain climate services (4).

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