Abstract
Secondary growth tropical rainforests have the potential to sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide and as such are an important carbon sink. To evaluate a local forest, a Carbon Neutrality Program was initiated at the Council on International Educational Exchange, San Luis Campus, Monteverde, Costa Rica. The study was conducted on 50 hectares of forest classified as Premontane Wet Forest. The forest, part of the Arenal-Monteverde Protected Zone, is estimated to be aproximately 50 years old and is in the upper regions of the San Luis valley at 1100 m elevation. Assessment of the carbon stock in trees was carried out in two permanent, 1 hectare plots, 100 m by 100 m, Camino Real and Zapote. The plots were divided into 25 subplots, 20 m by 20 m totaling 400 m2 per subplot. Ten subplots in each area were studied which represented 1.6% the total surface area of the forest. All of the trees were measured within the subplots that had a diameter at breast height ≥ 10 cm and the height of 10% of the trees measured. The estimated total CO2 sequestered by the campus forest was 18,210 ton (in 2019).
Highlights
Carbon dioxide is recognized as the primary greenhouse gas of the four gases that contribute the most to global warming
A frequency distribution suggested that the four data points of diameter at breast height (DBH) > 100 cm did not fit the data and suggested that these four trees were older that the rest of the plots and were considered outliers
The Camino Real area historically has been more interrupted by human activity than the Zapote plot which is why it has less trees, less basal area and less carbon volume
Summary
Carbon dioxide is recognized as the primary greenhouse gas of the four gases that contribute the most to global warming. If one considers the long C O2 concentration tail in some models, it has been suggested that the halflife could be as long as 300 years[15] Better constraining these estimates is a very active area of research and it is possible that the Climate Model Intercomparison Project in its sixth iteration (CMIP6) will lead to better estimates of atmospheric CO2 lifetimes[16,17]. Forests (or planting forests) can be thought of as reverse engineering human deforestation and providing a natural sink for CO228–30. It is estimated world-wide, that of the 4.06 billion hectares of Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:23464. Tropical forests provide the highest potential for carbon capture and sequestration because they have the highest carbon density of all forests[33]
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