Avoided Deforestation as a Climate Opportunity in the U.S.

Forests are a globally-significant store of carbon, but this store is vulnerable to release from disturbance processes such as harvesting or fires that contribute to global warming. At the same time, intact forests serve as a major offset to rising CO2 concentrations as forest growth becomes stimulated by rising CO2 levels, enabling forests to absorb about one third of annual carbon emissions from fossil fuels and land use change. The balance of these processes is constantly changing and it varies widely from region to region. Expanding upon previous work in the New England states, this project will provide the data, scientific analyses, and communications needed for quantifying the full climate impacts (e.g., carbon emissions and forgone carbon sequestration) of potential forest loss in the conterminous US. This project will also extend the work to include the albedo-induced radiative forcing and associated CO2 equivalent emissions that would be caused by avoiding forest conversion (deforestation).