Climate changes have alleviated climatic constraints on forest carbon
stocks since 1970 in most areas of the Northern Hemisphere
Abstract
Global climate action is urgent, with forest carbon stock critical for
mitigating climate change, yet vulnerable to its impacts. However, the
long-term dynamics of climate-driven forest carbon stock has not fully
been expressed. Here, we introduce the Forest carbon stock Accumulated
by Single Tree growth (FAST) framework and constructed a counterfactual
scenario to isolate and quantify the impacts of major climatic drivers
on forest carbon stock for 1901-2022. Results show that most breakpoints
in climate-driven forest carbon stock occurred post-1970, with Europe
experiencing the latest, followed by Asia, and North America the
earliest. Furthermore, we observe a prevailing increasing trend in
climate-driven forest carbon stock, especially in post-breakpoints
period (from 53% to 68%), indicating that climate changes have
alleviated climatic constraints on forest carbon stocks in most areas.
FAST can be utilized for historical, current and future forest carbon
stock estimation, providing scientific support for sustainable forest
management decisions.