1. Status: Criterion 5—Maintenance of forest contribution to global carbon cycles Linda S. Heath James E. Smith USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research Station Durham, NH, USA Ken Skog (Indicator 28) USFS, FPL, Madison, WI Technical Workshop on the Refinement of the MP Criteria 5 Indicators, 5-6 April, 2005, Atlanta, GA

2. Growth Removals Litterfall, Mortality Treefall Harvest residue Humification Decomposition SOIL DOWN DEAD WOOD FOREST FLOOR ATMOSPHERE STANDING DEAD HARVESTED CARBON BIOMASS Above and Below LANDFILLS ENERGY Imports/ Exports PRODUCTS Mortality Recycling decay processing burning disposalburning decay Land use change Nonforest Soil Erosion Forest sector carbon pools and flows

3. Indicators 26. Total forest ecosystem biomass and C pool, and if appropriate, by forest type, age class, and successional stages. (Stock) 27. Contribution of forest ecosystems to the total global C budget, including absorption and release of C. (Change in C; flux) 28. Contribution of forest products to the global C budget. State Department: Need to be consistent with UNFCCC estimates.

4. Basic relationships between indicators Ind. 26. Carbon stock = Carbon/Area x Area Ind 27= Ind 26(time2)-Ind 26(time1) Ind 28=f(Removals)(utilization rates)(decay rates)

5. 0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 Carbon pool (Mt) Aboveground Belowground Soil N P N P N P N P Coniferous Broad- Mixture Nonstocked/ leaved Chaparral N=Natural regeneration, P=Plantation Conterminous US Forest C pools (Mt), 1997, by broad forest types and regeneration status Indicator 26

6. Conterminous US Forest C, Inds 26&27

7. Net C changes in harvested wood pools (Mt/yr) for the US Includes net imports Indicator 28

8. National GHG reporting to UNFCCC Annual Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions and Sinks Inventories (1990-present) (US Environmental Protection Agency) - All sectors, we do forest estimates Every 5 years, summary national communication -State Dept. Public involvement

9. US forest C stock change, 2003 DRAFT: Smith and Heath for 2005 EPA GHG Inventory 12% of total U.S. CO 2 emissions

10. IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (1994-1996) Reference, Workbook, Reporting IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (2001-2003) IPCC Revision Guidelines (2004-2006) ? volumes. AFOLU: Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use  Nations need to be consistent with the methodology in the guidelines Conform to Everimproving International Reporting Guidelines

11. Approach for current Crit 5 estimates Use Forest Inventory & Analysis (FIA) inventory data coupled with a modeling approach. Data from 120,000 field plots, collected by the USDA FS Forest Inventory & Analysis. Models include equations to convert tree measurements to carbon, equations to estimate non-tree carbon, to a complex modeling system to track projections of C Model tracks carbon through harvested wood products (Skog and Nicholson 1998)

12. Need to do better… Units (that is, metric vs english vs mixed) Soil and belowground carbon Clear definitions of forest, forest mgmt Alaska, Hawaii, Territory coverage? Gross changes, not just net? Harvested wood Criteria to choose between estimates from different approaches? Noncarbon greenhouse gases

13. Methods to determine estimates Field measurements with biometric eqns. Flux towers/Data fusion Models: Ecological/ biogeographical/ biogeochemical/biophysical Default IPCC approach—perhaps default 1605b approach Uncertainty analysis Carbon in Harvested Wood: Modeling— imports/exports

14. UNFCCC Reporting – still evolving Consistency Moving toward full land representation (forest, cropland, grassland, wetland, settlement, other) Be able to report subcategories (nonforest becoming forest, forest remaining forest) Uncertainties required Key source analysis Transparency, verification, accuracy, precision, cost

15. Painted Hills, OR