Aboveground live tree carbon stock and change in forests of conterminous United States: influence of stand age.

Background: Sequestration of carbon on forest land is a common and practical component within many climate action plans developed by state or municipal governments. Initial planning often identifies the general magnitude of sequestration expected given the scope of the project. Because age plays a key role in forest carbon dynamics, we summarize both the carbon stock and accumulation rates in live trees by age class and region, allowing managers and policymakers to assess the influence of forest age class structure on forest carbon storage as represented in current inventories.

Current aboveground live tree carbon stocks and annual net change in forests of conterminous United States.

Background: With the introduction of the Trillion Trees Initiative and similar programs, forests' ability to absorb carbon dioxide is increasingly in the spotlight. Many states have mandates to develop climate action plans, of which forest carbon is an important component, and planners need current information on forest carbon stocks and rates of change at relevant spatial scales. To this end, we examine rates of average annual change in live aboveground tree carbon in different forest type groups and provide state-wide and regional summaries of current live tree carbon stock and rates of change for the forests of the conterminous United States.

Evaluating revised biomass equations: are some forest types more equivalent than others?

Background: In 2014, Chojnacky et al. published a revised set of biomass equations for trees of temperate US forests, expanding on an existing equation set (published in 2003 by Jenkins et al.), both of which were developed from published equations using a meta-analytical approach.

Management Impacts on Forest Floor and Soil Organic Carbon in Northern Temperate Forests of the US.

Background: The role of forests in the global carbon cycle has been the subject of a great deal of research recently, but the impact of management practices on forest soil dynamics at the stand level has received less attention. This study used six forest management experimental sites in five northern states of the US to investigate the effects of silvicultural treatments (light thinning, heavy thinning, and clearcutting) on forest floor and soil carbon pools.

Results: No overall trend was found between forest floor carbon stocks in stands subjected to partial or complete harvest treatments.

Potential gains in C storage on productive forestlands in the northeastern United States through stocking management.

One method of increasing forest carbon stocks that is often discussed is increasing stocking levels on existing forested lands. However, estimates of the potential increases in forest carbon sequestration as a result of increased stocking levels are not readily available. Using the USDA Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis data coupled with the Forest Vegetation Simulator, we estimate that, for a seven-state region in the northeastern United States, timberland contains about 1768 Tg of carbon in aboveground live biomass across all stocking classes.

Using forest health monitoring data to integrate above and below ground carbon information.

The national Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) program conducted a remeasurement study in 1999 to evaluate the usefulness and feasibility of collecting data needed for investigating carbon budgets in forests. This study indicated that FHM data are adequate for detecting a 20% change over 10 years (2% change per year) in percent total carbon and carbon content (MgC/ha) when sampling by horizon, with greater than 80% probability that a change in carbon content will be determined when a change has truly occurred (P < or = 0.33).