A new study published in Nature has found that managing Europe's forests to maximise carbon sequestration has a negligible effect on the global climate.

If you think that sustainable forest management can be a major contributor to mitigating climate change, then you had better not hold your breath. At least not according to the findings in a recent study published in Nature by an international team of scientists led by Vrije University Amsterdam. The team included postdoc Sylvestre Njakou Djomo from the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus University in Denmark.

The scientists found that the additional climate benefits through sustainable forest management will be modest and local rather than global. Even if Europe's forests are managed in such a way that their carbon sequestration is maximised it will not impact the climate significantly.

Instead, it seems that the forests themselves will need to be adapted to climate change.

"We suggest that the primary role of forest management in Europe in the coming decades is not in protecting the climate but in adapting the forest cover to the climate of the future in order to sustain the provision of wood, as well as ecological, social and cultural services, while avoiding climate feedbacks from fire, wind, pests and drought," say the authors of the article.

Three forest management scenarios tested
The team of scientists improved a complex computer model to calculate the amount of carbon, energy and water that is trapped or released by managing a forest. They then analysed the effects of three different forest management strategies. The three scenarios reflect different ideas of how forest management in Europe might contribute to mitigating climate change and are as follows:

+ maximise the carbon sequestration ability of the forest sector
+ maximise the reflectivity of the forests
+ reduce the surface temperature near the forest.

Sustainable forest management has the potential to slow global warming by removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Forest management that has a focus on minimising CO2 can thus remove seven gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere by the year 2100.

"This should result in a cooling of the upper atmosphere. However, we did not see the expected impact because other processes play a part and affect, for example, wind speed and air humidity," Sylvestre Njakou explains.

Alternatively, forest managers could practice climate-based management by converting evergreen forests to deciduous forests. This would result in a cooling of about 0.3+ C in the spring in Scandinavia and the Alps. However, the effect is too small to have a global impact.

"On the other hand, it would decrease the wood available for harvest by 25 percent," Sylvestre Njakou points out.

Research paper

Related Links
Aarhus University
Forestry News - Global and Local News, Science and Application

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Climate summit host Poland says smart forest management key
Rome (AFP) Oct 16, 2018
Poland's President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday said smart forest management is key to fighting climate change and to help farming, weeks before he leads a major UN climate summit. Duda in December will host the COP24 UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, where world leaders will be under pressure to ramp up national carbon-cutting pledges. "Forests have a significant and positive impact on drought-prevention and soil degradation, at the same time, improving and, in many cases, creating favourable c ... read more