The critical role of forests as massive “sinks” for absorbing greenhouse gases is “at risk of being lost entirely” to climate change-induced environmental stresses that threaten to damage and even decimate forests worldwide, according to a new report released today. The report will be formally presented at the next session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) taking place 20 April-1 May 2009 at the UN Headquarters in New York City.
“Adaptation of Forests and People to Climate Change – A Global Assessment” was coordinated by the Vienna-based International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) through the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), an alliance of 14 international organizations that each has substantial forestry programs.
Authored by 35 of the world’s top forestry scientists, it provides the first global assessment to date of the ability of forests to adapt to climate change and is expected to play a key role in next week’s UNFF discussions. The report presents the state of scientific knowledge regarding the current and projected future impacts of climate change on forests and people along with options for adaptation.
“We normally think of forests as putting the brakes on global warming, but in fact over the next few decades, damage induced by climate change could cause forests to release huge quantities of carbon and create a situation in which they do more to accelerate warming than to slow it down,” said Risto Seppälä, a professor at the Finnish Forest Research Institute (Metla) and Immediate Past President of IUFRO, who chaired the expert panel that produced the report.
The report is here [224 page, 3.6 MB PDF]. See the press release link above for versions in French, Spanish, German, and Finnish. That same page also has links to a policy brief, “Making forests fit for climate change”, in various languages.
Is it my imagination, or is the climate chaos impact on forests, particularly in terms of triggering yet another Big, Scary Feedback, suddenly getting a lot more attention?
Whether this is news to the world or just to me, it feels like we’ve colored in a couple more tiles in the climate mosaic. And as we’ve seen so many times in recent months, it’s not resolving into a pretty picture.
You’re right on target Lou, they’re getting alot more attention. I think that study that showed the Amazon went from a big carbon sink to a net carbon source in 2003 (I think that was the year) with a little drying and heat really shocked alot people and now its being looked at everywhere.
I think it was over on Climate Progress where Joe was mentioning that with too much acidification the oceans could turn into a source as well – another big feedback to add to the list it seems.
Its frightening the amount of things we’ve discovered over the last year or so that are stacked much further against us than we thought…totally gives me that feeling you see in a movie where the control of the situations is falling out of the protagonist’s hands and there’s nothing they can do about it. I guess this is just a taste of what it would be like to learn one of the big feedbacks is cooking off (and its basically becoming game over).
Frankly with the way this is all has been rolling (for the last couple of years), I hope we still have a chance to stop all this – and that we’re not in a situation where its already over with and we just don’t know it yet (I haven’t considered this even a possibility until recently).
Your last sentence really sums up where I am right now. For a long time I was optimistic that enough of us would wake up and push private and public actions in the right direction to save the day on both the peak oil and climate chaos fronts. I always knew it would be painful, with a lot of people being encouraged (or even forced) to do things they don’t want, but I never really thought the outcome was in doubt.
Now, I’m still relatively confident about peak oil, but climate chaos terrifies me. This is why I’ve written so much in recent months about all those “it’s worse than we thought” discoveries; we keep finding out that our perception of the CC situation was too optimistic. I think of it as an awareness version of the oft-used wedges paradigm. Every time we find out about some major surprise, it effectively makes our job that much harder and more urgent.
The thing about the oceans that scares me is not that they’ll become a source in the short run, although that would surely be a nightmare scenario. But they absorb so much CO2 already that if they significantly slow down (not even stop) doing that, then the atmospheric level will jump, and we’d then have to live with that extra CO2 load forever, in effect.
And then there’s the ticking time bomb known as the melting tundra…
I feel much the same way – confident on peak oil now (seemed like such a big thing a few years ago) and really worried about climate change. I want this “uh, this is happening much sooner than we though” stuff to end and have our scientist catch up to the climate system.
You’re right about the oceans (and forests for that matter) and CO2 uptake – all those models used previously for our CO2 ppm forecasts typically assumed the ocean would take a constant amount into the future.
I’m really praying that the 2.0C target (to avoid big feedbacks) is valid (even though that was created years ago, which doesn’t help my confidence and one reason why I say pray on that), as I don’t think we’ll be ready to actively stop a big feedback if it happens much earlier – say 1.5C.
My humble opinion is, one way or the other, we’ll know whether we’ve got a chance to handle this (we get serious enough to keep the big feedbacks from kicking off) or that we’ve blown it (i.e. China just doesn’t do emissions cuts or our political processes aren’t up to the task and we don’t get serious) in the next 10-15 years (maybe sooner). Oddly, this doesn’t make me feel good.
“And then there’s the ticking time bomb known as the melting tundra… ”
Yeah…well just let the CIA waterboard that melting tundra for a few more years and see what intel we can get out of it regarding the location of that ticking time bomb.