Protect young secondary forests for optimum carbon removal
(2025) In Nature Climate Change 15. p.793-800- Abstract
Avoiding severe global warming requires large-scale removals of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Forest regeneration offers cost-effective carbon removals, but annual rates vary substantially by location and forest age. Here we generate grid-level (~1-km2) growth curves for aboveground live carbon in naturally regrowing forests by combining 109,708 field estimates with 66 environmental covariates. Across the globe and the first 100 years of growth, maximum carbon removal rates varied 200-fold, with the greatest rates estimated in ~20- to 40-year-old forests. Despite a focus on new forests for natural climate solutions, protecting existing young secondary forests can provide up to 8-fold more carbon removal per hectare than new... (More)
Avoiding severe global warming requires large-scale removals of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Forest regeneration offers cost-effective carbon removals, but annual rates vary substantially by location and forest age. Here we generate grid-level (~1-km2) growth curves for aboveground live carbon in naturally regrowing forests by combining 109,708 field estimates with 66 environmental covariates. Across the globe and the first 100 years of growth, maximum carbon removal rates varied 200-fold, with the greatest rates estimated in ~20- to 40-year-old forests. Despite a focus on new forests for natural climate solutions, protecting existing young secondary forests can provide up to 8-fold more carbon removal per hectare than new regrowth. These maps could help to target the optimal ages and locations where a key carbon removal strategy could be applied, and improve estimates of how secondary forests contribute to global carbon cycling.
(Less)
- author
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Nature Climate Change
- volume
- 15
- pages
- 793 - 800
- publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105008921121
- ISSN
- 1758-678X
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41558-025-02355-5
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.
- id
- 16f7e370-e509-447e-a5a6-874da9795476
- date added to LUP
- 2025-07-14 09:45:14
- date last changed
- 2025-08-12 13:19:41
@article{16f7e370-e509-447e-a5a6-874da9795476,
abstract = {{<p>Avoiding severe global warming requires large-scale removals of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Forest regeneration offers cost-effective carbon removals, but annual rates vary substantially by location and forest age. Here we generate grid-level (~1-km<sup>2</sup>) growth curves for aboveground live carbon in naturally regrowing forests by combining 109,708 field estimates with 66 environmental covariates. Across the globe and the first 100 years of growth, maximum carbon removal rates varied 200-fold, with the greatest rates estimated in ~20- to 40-year-old forests. Despite a focus on new forests for natural climate solutions, protecting existing young secondary forests can provide up to 8-fold more carbon removal per hectare than new regrowth. These maps could help to target the optimal ages and locations where a key carbon removal strategy could be applied, and improve estimates of how secondary forests contribute to global carbon cycling.</p>}},
author = {{Robinson, Nathaniel and Drever, C. Ronnie and Gibbs, David A. and Lister, Kristine and Esquivel-Muelbert, Adriane and Heinrich, Viola and Ciais, Philippe and Silva-Junior, Celso H.L. and Liu, Zhihua and Pugh, Thomas A.M. and Saatchi, Sassan and Xu, Yidi and Cook-Patton, Susan C.}},
issn = {{1758-678X}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{793--800}},
publisher = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
series = {{Nature Climate Change}},
title = {{Protect young secondary forests for optimum carbon removal}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02355-5}},
doi = {{10.1038/s41558-025-02355-5}},
volume = {{15}},
year = {{2025}},
}