Leveraging Uncertainty in Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Stocks and Fluxes

Abstract

Forests sequester ∼25% of anthropogenic carbon (C) emissions annually and are of increasing interest for their potential as Nature-based Climate Solutions (NbCS). Emergent from the need to assess terrestrial ecosystem health and quantify C storage and fluxes, several gridded products documenting terrestrial C and changes in C stocks over time have been developed. However, researchers have not yet systematically compared C distributions across products, or developed a clear path forward for investigating and leveraging this cross-product uncertainty in estimates of terrestrial C. Alaniz et al. (2022, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002560) synthesize multiple published products to constrain the distribution of forest C stocks and fluxes globally. Building off of their results, we comment on opportunities for advancing both basic science and NbCS policy recommendations through systematic product cross-comparisons and targeting of areas with differing levels of uncertainties in the terrestrial C sink.