Climate Change and Carbon Sequestration in Forest Ecosystems

Abstract

Forest ecosystems have been identified to be the largest land carbon sink and account for more than half of carbon stored in the terrestrial ecosystems. The influences of climate change on forest ecosystems could have significant implications on global carbon cycling. In this chapter, we reviewed research progresses about climate change impacts on forest ecosystem carbon cycling in the past 20 years. Our review is mostly on field experiments and modeling studies. This chapter starts with a brief description of climate change and forest ecosystems. Different experimental studies are then presented. The impacts of global change such as elevated CO2, global warming, and changes in precipitation and O3 on carbon cycling in forest ecosystems are synthesized. Next, we present some modeling studies of forest ecosystem carbon cycling at ecosystem, regional, and global scales. At the end of the chapter, we make some recommendations for future studies.