Integrated carbon storage data and models for climate risk management

Achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 depends on our ability to accurately quantify, manage, and protect carbon stocks across the world’s terrestrial ecosystems [1]. Terrestrial vegetation regulates global climate by sequestering and storing atmospheric carbon. However, increasing urbanization and agricultural expansion encroach upon natural ecosystems, while forests face climate impacts like droughts and wildfires. Models are crucial for mapping carbon storage and guide conservation and restoration efforts by simulating carbon cycle regulation, helping assess the potential of nature based solutions. As we experience an escalating climate crisis, we must understand three key factors: i) how much carbon is stored, ii) where it is stored, and iii) how storage capacity may change over time (as well as other services that ecosystems offer to society). The complexity of this task has led researchers to develop models with varying degrees of sophistication, each serving different purposes in the broader effort to manage carbon stocks. Estimating carbon stocks in a transparent, accurate manner that is consistent over time is critical to estimating the effects of past, present and future changes in emissions and removals of CO2 from the atmosphere. However, incoherent modelling approaches can create confusion for decision makers. For example, current global land use emissions estimates differ by approximately 7 billion tonnes of CO2 per year (20% of global fossil CO2 emissions) between global models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports and national inventories under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) [2]. More integrated science can better help drive informed policies and action. Two recent studies developed at the Basque Centre of Climate Change (BC3) [3,4], which sit on different ends of the model complexity spectrum, offer insights on the value of integrating multi-tiered carbon storage modelling approaches.