Perhumid Forests of SE Alaska and SW BC

Spatial Patterning and Carbon Vulnerability: Does the spatial arrangement of forest management increase susceptibility to climate change and ecosystem disturbances?

James Lamping (PhD student) and Melissa Lucash

The moderate climate along the north Pacific coast of the U.S. and Canada (Alaska and British Columbia), with its ample rainfall and a lack of fire, has created an immense, long-lasting storehouse of C in its dense, “perhumid” rainforests (forests with no definable dry season). The coastal temperate rainforests of southeast Alaska alone store >2.8 Pg in biomass and soils (Leighty et al. 2006, Nicholls and Patternson 2015). Aboveground C totals are hugely variable, ranging from ~2 Mg/ha in grassy peatlands to ~500 Mg/ha in riparian forests (Buma et al. 2016); belowground C densities, especially in peatlands, are similar (for the Tongass National Forest; Leighty et al. 2006). Spatial variability in C stocks are primarily driven by topography in unmanaged (natural) settings, with moderate slopes containing the highest aboveground C stocks (Buma et al. 2016) and flat areas containing the highest belowground C (McNicol et al., 2019).

Click here for project results and cool maps of current forest conditions.

Click here for project results and cool maps of future forest conditions.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, 2022- present