Book ChapterDOI
Changes in Amazonian Forest Biomass, Dynamics, and Composition, 1980–2002
Oliver L. Phillips,Niro Higuchi,Simone Aparecida Vieira,Timothy R. Baker,Kuo-Jung Chao,Simon L. Lewis +5 more
TLDR
In this paper, the authors examined the evidence for concerted changes in the structure, dynamics, and functional composition of old-growth Amazonian forests over recent decades and estimated a net biomass increase in trees > 10 cm diameter of 0.62 ± 0.23 t C ha -1 a -1 through the late twentieth century.Abstract:
© 2009 by the American Geophysical Union. All rights reserved. Long-term, on-the-ground monitoring of forest plots distributed across Amazonia provides a powerful means to quantify stocks and fluxes of biomass and biodiversity. Here we examine the evidence for concerted changes in the structure, dynamics, and functional composition of old-growth Amazonian forests over recent decades. Mature forests have, as a whole, gained biomass and undergone accelerated growth and dynamics, but questions remain as to the long-term persistence of these changes. Because forest growth on average exceeds mortality, intact Amazonian forests have been functioning as a carbon sink. We estimate a net biomass increase in trees > 10 cm diameter of 0.62 ± 0.23 t C ha -1 a -1 through the late twentieth century. If representative of the wider forest landscape, this translates into a sink in South American old-growth forest of at least 0.49 ± 0.18 Pg C a -1 . If other biomass and necromass components also increased proportionally, the estimated South American old-growth forest sink is 0.79 ± 0.29 Pg C a -1 , before allowing for possible gains in soil carbon. If tropical forests elsewhere are behaving similarly, the old-growth biomass forest sink would be 1.60 ± 0.58 Pg C a -1 . This bottom-up estimate of the carbon balance of tropical forests is preliminary, pending syntheses of detailed biometric studies across the other tropical continents. There is also some evidence for recent changes in the functional composition (biodiversity) of Amazonian forest, but the evidence is less comprehensive than that for changes in structure and dynamics. The most likely driver(s) of changes are recent increases in the supply of resources such as atmospheric carbon dioxide, which would increase net primary productivity, increasing tree growth and recruitment, and, in turn, mortality. In the future the growth response of remaining undisturbed Amazonian forests is likely to saturate, and there is a risk of these ecosystems transitioning from sink to source driven by higher respiration (temperature), higher mortality (drought), or compositional change (functional shifts toward lighterwooded plants). Even a modest switch from carbon sink to source for Amazonian forests would impact global climate, biodiversity, and human welfare, while the documented acceleration of tree growth and mortality may already be affecting the interactions of thousands of plant and millions of animal species.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Global covariation of carbon turnover times with climate in terrestrial ecosystems
Nuno Carvalhais,Matthias Forkel,Myroslava Khomik,Jessica Bellarby,Martin Jung,Mirco Migliavacca,Mingquan Mu,Sassan Saatchi,Maurizio Santoro,Martin Thurner,Ulrich Weber,Bernhard Ahrens,Christian Beer,Alessandro Cescatti,James T. Randerson,Markus Reichstein +15 more
TL;DR: A global, spatially explicit and observation-based assessment of whole-ecosystem carbon turnover times that combines new estimates of vegetation and soil organic carbon stocks and fluxes finds that the overall mean global carbon turnover time is years (95 per cent confidence interval).
Journal ArticleDOI
Detecting trends in tree growth: not so simple
TL;DR: Tracking and predicting the effects of environmental change on tree biomass requires well-designed studies that address the issues that are reviewed, and statistical control of the axiomatic co-variation of tree size and age is required.
Journal ArticleDOI
Amazon palm biomass and allometry
Rosa C. Goodman,Oliver L. Phillips,Dennis Del Castillo Torres,Luis Freitas,Sebastián Tapia Cortese,Abel Monteagudo,Timothy R. Baker +6 more
TL;DR: It was found that stem height was the best predictor variable for arborescent palm biomass, but the relationship between stem height and biomass differed among species, and most species showed weak biomass–diameter relationships, but a significant relationship could be identified across all species.
Journal ArticleDOI
A fully multiple-criteria implementation of the Sobol' method for parameter sensitivity analysis
Rafael Rosolem,Hoshin V. Gupta,W. James Shuttleworth,Xubin Zeng,Luis Gustavo Gonçalves de Gonçalves +4 more
TL;DR: In this article, a rank-based fully multiple-criteria implementation of the Sobol′ variance-based sensitivity analysis approach is presented, which implements an objective strategy to evaluate parameter sensitivity when model evaluation involves several metrics of performance.
Journal ArticleDOI
Carbon balance of South Asia constrained by passenger aircraft CO 2 measurements
Prabir K. Patra,Yosuke Niwa,Tanja Schuck,Carl A. M. Brenninkmeijer,Toshinobu Machida,H. Matsueda,Yousuke Sawa +6 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used regional measurements of atmospheric CO 2 aboard a Lufthansa passenger aircraft between Frankfurt (Germany) and Chennai (India) at cruise altitude, in addition to the existing network sites for 2008, to estimate monthly fluxes for 64-regions using Bayesian inversion and transport model simulations.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems
Camille Parmesan,Gary W. Yohe +1 more
TL;DR: A diagnostic fingerprint of temporal and spatial ‘sign-switching’ responses uniquely predicted by twentieth century climate trends is defined and generates ‘very high confidence’ (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already affecting living systems.
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Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model
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Geology of mankind
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Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999
Ramakrishna R. Nemani,Charles D. Keeling,Hirofumi Hashimoto,Hirofumi Hashimoto,William M. Jolly,Stephen C. Piper,Compton J. Tucker,Ranga B. Myneni,Steven W. Running +8 more
TL;DR: It is indicated that global changes in climate have eased several critical climatic constraints to plant growth, such that net primary production increased 6% (3.4 petagrams of carbon over 18 years) globally.
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