Forests are the planet’s biggest terrestrial carbon sinks, soaking up and storing a quarter of the world’s annual emissions. Forests are also vulnerable to changes in climate, leading scientists to explore whether they can continue their sequestering magic in a warming world. A new large-scale study provides a worrisome answer, suggesting that while forests are very resilient, they may not be able to shoulder the load in the long run.
As global temperatures rise, forests face a pair of counteracting carbon processes. Warming causes dead plants to decompose more quickly, which releases carbon dioxide. But decomposition also releases ammonium—essentially fertilizer—into the soil, allowing trees to grow faster and store more carbon.
To find out which process wins out, ecologist Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, tracked two 10,000-square-foot plots of deciduous forest for seven years. On one plot, he installed underground cables to warm the ...
