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Role of carbon in the world, and in the U.S.

National Assessment of Ecological C Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes – the USGS LandCarbon Project Zhiliang Zhu, Project Chief, zzhu@usgs.gov. What is the role of carbon in global change research? What do we know about carbon dynamics nationally and globally?

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Role of carbon in the world, and in the U.S.

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  1. National Assessment of Ecological C Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes – the USGS LandCarbon ProjectZhiliang Zhu, Project Chief, zzhu@usgs.gov • What is the role of carbon in global change research? What do we know about carbon dynamics nationally and globally? • The USGS assessment: what are our objectives and approach? • Introduce our recent work and findings, what do the findings mean to us?

  2. Role of carbon in the world, and in the U.S. Wikipedia: year 2000

  3. Carbon in Ecosystems

  4. Wetlands Forests Carbon cycle in ecosystems Agricultural lands Grasslands Aquatic systems

  5. What do we know? C stock in ecosystems estimated from various sources Annual C stock change in and between ecosystems from EPA (Tg C) Data are for CONUS only

  6. What we don’tknow (so well)? • What are spatial and temporal patterns and trends of the C stocks and fluxes? • How does climate change affect C stock and sequestration? • What is the role of LULC change? Land management? Natural disturbances?

  7. USGS LandCarbon Assessment Objectives and Scope Scope: Five primary ecosystems: forests, shrub/grasslands, croplands, wetlands and aquatic (rivers, lakes, coastal waters) systems Two types of assessment: baseline (current) and future projections (“forecasts”) Carbon storage and sequestration; fluxes of CO2, N2O, and CH4 Effects of natural and anthropogenic processes (e.g. climate change, wildfire, land use change, and land management activities) All 50 States Objectives: To implement the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), Section 712 To improve scientific understanding of carbon sequestration and GHG fluxes in ecosystems related to land use, using research results from USGS and other organizations

  8. Methodology of the Assessment Monitoring R&D • Current LULC maps • Future scenarios • Future LULC maps • Forest age change Input data: inventory,remote sensing, climate, soil, land management Terrestrial C and GHG modeling • Current fire areas and GHG emissions • Future fire areas and GHG emissions Analysis, Report, Data Distribution Aquatic C and GHG methods Information and Products Produced Annually from 2001 to 2050

  9. Assessment conducted at a regional scale 2nd 1st 3rd 4th

  10. IPCC 4th Assessment Scenarios

  11. Current and future potential LULC changes in Great Plains

  12. Wildland fire: current and future potential

  13. Baseline and Future Potential Carbon Trends

  14. Current C Budget in Great Plains Region

  15. Future LULC and C Changes in the Great Plains Net Changes Between Years

  16. Lessons learned from the GP assessment • There are many science gaps that affect the overall quality of the assessment • Biogeochemical models are very limited • It takes a lot of resources (time and money) to attribute effects of carbon sequestration to climate change, land use, land management, and natural disturbances; we were unable to do a good enough job • Still no good way to quantify uncertainties

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