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New findings in Global carbon balance research
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Recently, Science published an online research article on the global carbon budget of forest in the form of Science Express. This will have a significant impact on climate change research and international climate change policy. Dr. FANG Jingyun, Professor of Peking University, Director of the Institute of Botany, CAS, is one of the lead authors that undertake the implementation of the research.

The terrestrial carbon (C) sink has been large in recent decades, but its size and location remain uncertain. Using forest inventory data and long-term ecosystem C studies, they estimated a total forest sink of 2.4 ± 0.4 Pg C yr–1 globally for 1990–2007. They also estimated a source of 1.3 ± 0.7 Pg C yr–1 from tropical land-use change, consisting of a gross tropical deforestation emission of 2.9 ± 0.5 Pg C yr–1 partially compensated by a C sink in tropical forest regrowth of 1.6 ± 0.5 Pg C yr–1. Together, the fluxes comprise a net global forest sink of 1.1 ± 0.8 Pg C yr–1, with tropical estimates having the largest uncertainties. This forest sink is equivalent in magnitude to the terrestrial sink deduced from fossil fuel emissions and constraints of ocean and atmospheric sinks.

Dr. Fang has engaged in carbon budget and biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems for many years. He has published repeatedly on many international famous journals, such as Science, Nature and PNAS. In 2010, as one of the 12 appointed members of "International Academy Council" (IAC), Dr. Fang assessed independently on the fourth report of "United Nations Climate Change Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" (IPCC) .This had a broad impact in the international community, and led directly to the reform of assessment process and organization of IPCC.

Please see the full text of the paper at :

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/07/13/science.1201609.full.pdf

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/recent

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