Carbon Sequestration
Carbon Sequestration
Carbon Sequestration
Determine Herbs and small Number of live trees, Soil carbon Litter green
diameter stem by species or concentration weight
green weight, by plot species group, and dbh (0-30 cm)
Bulk density Moisture
content
Analyze Moisture content Green weight per tree, Literature
by diameter and species: search
total, bole, crown, roots
Soil carbon
Calculate Total weight of herbs, Total biomass of Litter dry
seedlings, saplings trees > 5cm dbh, weight
by species groups
Multiply by 0.5 or
detailed conversion
factors
Total carbon
(t C)
Estimating changes in soil carbon over time is generally more
challenging due to the high degree of variability of soil organic
mattereven within small geographic scales like a corn
fieldand because changes in soil carbon may be small
compared to the total amount of soil carbon. More
information on these carbon accounting methodologies can
be found in the Land-Use Change and Forestry chapter of
the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks,
and in the IPCC (2000) Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use
Change, and Forestry section on methods.
5. How much carbon sequestration
occurs in the U.S.?
The U.S. landscape acts as a net carbon sinkit
sequesters more carbon than it emits. Two types of
analyses confirm this: 1) atmospheric, or top-down,
methods that look at changes in CO2concentrations; and
2) land-based, or bottom-up, methods that incorporate
on-the-ground inventories or plot measurements.
For Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and
Sinks, please go to the current and archived inventory
pages. More information on U.S. carbon sequestration
estimates and historical trends can be found under
the National Analysis section of this Web site.
6. Do sequestration practices affect
greenhouse gases other than CO2?