Untouched forests store 3 times more carbon

[cedric]

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSSP25595420080805?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

Untouched natural forests store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated and 60 percent more than plantation forests, said a new Australian study of "green carbon" and its role in climate change.

Green carbon occurs in natural forests, brown carbon is found in industrialized forests or plantations, grey carbon in fossil fuels and blue carbon in oceans.

Australian National University (ANU) scientists said that the role of untouched forests, and their biomass of green carbon, had been underestimated in the fight against global warming.

"In Australia and probably globally, the carbon carrying capacity of natural forests is underestimated and therefore misrepresented in economic valuations and in policy options," said the scientists in their report released on Tuesday.

The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Kyoto Protocol did not distinguish between the carbon capacity of plantation forests and untouched forests, they said.

Yet untouched forests can carry three times the carbon presently estimated, if their biomass of carbon stock was included. Currently, forest carbon storage capacity is based on plantation forest estimates.

The report "Green Carbon, the role of natural forests in carbon storage" said a difference in the definition of a forest was also underestimating the carbon stock in old-growth forests.

The IPCC defines a forest as trees taller than 2 meters (six feet) and a canopy cover greater than 10 percent, but in Australia a forest was defined as having trees taller than 10 meters (33 feet) and a canopy cover greater than 30 percent.

[kestrel91316]

1. Old growth forests store a lot of that carbon as animal biomass

in addition to plant biomass. It's all about the ecological diversity.