What impact does climate change have on Colorado forests? This is what a recent report by the Colorado State Forest Service addressed as a team of researchers investigated climate change effects on the carbon inventory within Colorado’s forests. This report has the potential to help scientists, legislators, and the public better understand the negative impacts of climate change and the steps that need to be taken to mitigate them.
For the report, the authors used a variety of statistical methods, models, and data sources to inventory Colorado’s forest carbon, including carbon pool calculations, carbon stock and flux calculations, fire emissions, and documenting harvested wood. In the end, the authors found that Colorado’s forests are releasing more carbon than they absorb, primarily due to dead trees emitting carbon during decomposition.
“People are looking to our natural ecosystems to mitigate climate change,” said Dr. Tony Vorster, who is a research scientist with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and lead author of the report. “We shouldn't necessarily look to our forests to offset emissions because they're currently a net carbon source across the state as a whole, and that trend is probably going to continue with ongoing droughts and wildfires.”
Image of a patch of Colorado forest with dead tree (gray) mixed among the living trees. (Credit: Field Peterson/Colorado State Forest Service)
The authors aspire to use this report to educate and inform state lawmakers to take appropriate action for mitigating the effects of climate change, thus hopefully flipping the current carbon inventory numbers where Colorado’s forests are absorbing more carbon than they are emitting. Colorado Forests comprise approximately 24.4 million acres, or approximately 32 percent of Colorado’s total land area. Therefore, helping to protect the carbon inventory in this vast forest could help turn the tide on the fight against climate change for everyone.
What new connections between climate change and a forest’s carbon inventory will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Colorado State Forest Service, EurekAlert!, Colorado State Forest Service (1)
