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The location and mechanisms responsible for the carbon
sink in northern mid-latitude lands are uncertain. Here, we used animproved estimation method of forest biomass and a 50-year nationalforest resource inventory in China to estimate changes in thestorage
of living biomass between 1949 and 1998. Our results suggestthat
Chinese forests released about 0.68 petagram of carbon between1949 and
1980, for an annual emission rate of 0.022 petagram ofcarbon. Carbon
storage increased significantly after the late1970s from 4.38 to 4.75 petagram of carbon by 1998, for a meanaccumulation rate of 0.021 petagram of carbon per year, mainlydue to forest expansion and
regrowth. Since the mid-1970s, plantedforests (afforestation and
reforestation) have sequestered 0.45petagram of carbon, and their
average carbon density increasedfrom 15.3 to 31.1 megagrams per
hectare, while natural forestshave lost an additional 0.14 petagram of
carbon, suggesting thatcarbon sequestration through forest management
practices addressedin the Kyoto Protocol could help offset industrial
carbon dioxideemissions.
1 Department of Urban and Environmental
Science, and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry
of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
2 Ministry of Natural Resources, Ontario Forest
Research Institute, 1235 Queen Street East, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, P6A
2E5, Canada, and Faculty of Forestry and The Forest Environment,
Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, ON, P7B 5E1, Canada.
3 Institute of Forest Ecology and Environment,
Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
jyfang{at}urban.pku.edu.cn
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