Simulations show decreasing carbon stocks and potential for carbon emissions in Rocky Mountain forests over the next century
Boisvenue C and Running SW. 2010. Simulations show decreasing carbon stocks and potential for carbon emissions in Rocky Mountain forests over the next century. Ecological Applications. 20(5):1302-1319
Climate change has altered the environment in which forests grow, and climatechange models predict more severe alterations to come. Forests have already responded tothese changes, and the future temperature and precipitation scenarios are of foremost concern,especially in the mountainous western United States, where forests occur in the dryenvironments that interface with grasslands. The objective of this study was to understand thetrade-offs between temperature and water controls on these forested sites in the context ofavailable climate projections. Three temperature and precipitation scenarios from IPCC AR4AOGCMs ranging in precipitation levels were input to the process model Biome-BGC for keyforested sites in the northern U.S. Rocky Mountains. Despite the omission of natural andhuman-caused disturbances in our simulations, our results show consequential effects fromthese conservative future temperature and precipitation scenarios. According to theseprojections, if future precipitation and temperatures are similar to or drier than the dryscenario depicted here, high-elevation forests on both the drier and wetter sites, which have inthe absence of disturbance accumulated carbon, will reduce their carbon accumulation. Underthe marginally drier climate projections, most forests became carbon sources by the end of thesimulation horizon (2089). Under all three scenarios, growing season lengthened, the numberof days with snow on the ground decreased, peak snow occurred earlier, and water stressincreased through the projection horizon (1950–2089) for all sites, which represent thetemperature and precipitation spectrum of forests in this region. The quantity, form, andtiming of precipitation ultimately drive the carbon accumulation trajectory of forests in thisregion.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Boisvenue, Céline; Running, Steven
- Units
- GLAC , GRYN
- Keywords
- Carbon, Climate Change, Forest, Northern U.S. Rocky Mountains, water temperature balance