Evaluating the capabilities of Eastern Canadian forest ecosystems to sequester atmospheric CO2 and their response to climate change

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Rising levels of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases are a concern to scientists and policy-makers, because they trap longwave radiation emitted from Earth, contributing to our atmosphere's warming. Recently released fourth UN IPCC report concluded that warming of the climate system is unequivocal and very likely due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Canada considers its forests as a potential carbon (C) sink. However, Canadian government has not yet decided whether it will adopt the biological C sink option to offset fossil fuel emissions, due to uncertainties associated with biological C sinks, particularly in forests. Future warming of the climate may have a severe impact on the health and growth of Canadian forest ecosystems, which are already being seriously affected by current warmer climatic conditions. This Strategic Grant Proposal (SGP) focuses on evaluating the capabilities of three key Eastern Canadian forest ecosystems, a conifer age-sequence (65, 35, 5 year old), deciduous, and mixedwood stands, to sequester atmospheric CO2 and their response to future climate change (e.g. warming, drought, etc.). This SGP would also focus on developing and incorporating a nitrogen (N) cycle model in the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM+N). CTEM+N will be used to explore the impact of natural and anthropogenic effects (i.e. increased N deposition, CO2 fertilization, severe drought and flooding events, temperature stresses, etc) on simulated C and water exchanges in all three (conifer, deciduous and mixedwood) forest ecosystems under various future climate change scenarios. Quantification of the responses of all three major Eastern Canadian forest ecosystems to climate change would equip environmental planners and managers to develop strategies that may help these ecosystems to better adapt to future climate change. Implementation of CTEM+N in the Canadian Global Climate Model would provide an assessment tool to generate scenarios of future climate for policy development and help Canada meet its international obligations.