Mitigation of Climatic Warming in Forestry

In natural conditions, boreal forests retain substantial amounts of carbon in living and dead biomass. Natural disturbances such as wildfires release forest-based carbon, with losses of carbon into the atmosphere. This further holds for the harvesting of timber and biomass for substituting fossil-based materials. The concurrent increase of atmospheric carbon does not disrupt the entry of shortwave solar radiation through the atmosphere, but it reduces the outgoing long-wave radiation into space. Under increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, more heat is curbed in the lower atmosphere, thus warming the climate. Concurrently, carbon dioxide is taken up in photosynthesis and bound in biomass in plant growth. This carbon retains in the forest-based carbon cycle depending on the amount and properties of biomass and dead organic matter in the ecosystems. The carbon stocks and concurrent reflectance of solar radiation (or albedo) affect the radiative forcing. Radiative forcing refers to changes in the radiative balance and consequent climate cooling/warming in response to the content of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, with links to the carbon dynamics and management of forest ecosystems.