A hybrid biometric-modelling approach for estimating carbon stock and flux indicators from tree-ring data

Reliable projections of future carbon (C) dynamics are essential to resource management decision making under a changing climate. A hybrid-biometric modelling approach that combines tree-ring based stand reconstruction and the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3) to estimate past magnitude and inter-annual variation of ecosystem carbon stocks and fluxes including net primary production (NPP), net ecosystem production (NEP), and heterotrophic respiration (Rh) can be used to generate additional corroborative data that may reduce uncertainty in C flux estimates. Comparison of this approach against eddy covariance derived estimates has shown good correspondence for some indicators for some species and sites, but less so for others. This seminar describes this approach, discusses some of the uncertainties, and the results of some case study applications in forest management and reclamation studies.