A framework for assessing global change risks to forest carbon stocks in the United States.

Among terrestrial environments, forests are not only the largest long-term sink of atmospheric carbon (C), but are also susceptible to global change themselves, with potential consequences including alterations of C cycles and potential C emission. To inform global change risk assessment of forest C across large spatial/temporal scales, this study constructed and evaluated a basic risk framework which combined the magnitude of C stocks and their associated probability of stock change in the context of global change across the US. For the purposes of this analysis, forest C was divided into five pools, two live (aboveground and belowground biomass) and three dead (dead wood, soil organic matter, and forest floor) with a risk framework parameterized using the US's national greenhouse gas inventory and associated forest inventory data across current and projected future Köppen-Geiger climate zones (A1F1 scenario).

Assessing dangerous climate change through an update of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "reasons for concern".

Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [United Nations (1992) http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf.