Tropical Ecology Log 1: Tropical Forests and Climate Change 24-2-2010

Two anthropogenic forcings driving climate change are land use change and fossil fuel emissions, of which, land use is of the most uncertain magnitude. With increasing forest dynamics altering the interactions between plants and animals it becomes more and more difficult to measure both the uptake of atmospheric CO2 by the existing forest and the amount of CO2 that would be released from the soil after deforestation. In addition, our uncertainty in the exact use of the deforested land (whether it is used for a plantation, a pasture, etc), the lack of consensus by scientists on a deforestation rate, and the difficulty of estimates of forest biomass all create problems for calculating the effects of land use change. With these fluctuating rates of forest productivity (that are perhaps enhanced by a warming climate), and unknown forest biomass, it is difficult to predict how much atmospheric CO2 is stored in the soil and how much of that will be released depending on the new use for the land. Therefore, scientists still face many challenges in predicting the magnitude and speed of climate change due to this anthropogenic forcing.