"Forestry for the Future"
Carbon Sequestration
Carbon sequestration refers to the provision of long-term storage of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere, underground, or oceans so that the buildup of carbon dioxide (the principal greenhouse gas) concentration in the atmosphere will reduce or slow. Carbon
sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems can be defined as the net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere into long-lived pools of carbon. These pools can be living, aboveground biomass (e.g., trees), products with a long, useful life created from biomass (e.g., lumber), living biomass in soils (e.g., roots and microorganisms), or recalcitrant organic and inorganic carbon in soils and deeper subsurface environments. It is important to emphasize that increasing photosynthetic carbon fixation alone is not enough. This carbon must be fixed into long-lived pools, like forests. Otherwise, one may be simply altering the size of fluxes in the carbon cycle, not increasing carbon sequestration.
Carbon Sequestration a site sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy provides useful links and information pertaining to carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems.
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change provides a comprehensive look at the issue of carbon sequestration and what can be done to improve forest-species responses to atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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