"With more than 300 references of the latest work relevant to how biological systems cycle carbon, this report is a scientific tour de force." "This report contains 12 original chapters of new science that will enable land managers to track and calculate carbon storage and greenhouse gas fluxes over time for the American West's varied ecosystems," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. The study's results point out that, among their many other ecosystem services, these lands are immensely valuable because of their ability to store carbon. It includes well-known ecosystems, such as the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, the Pacific Northwest forests and the vast grasslands and shrublands of the Great Basin. The area studied extends from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coastal waters, and totals just over 1 million square miles. The first report, on the Great Plains, was released in December 2011 reports on the eastern United States, Alaska, and Hawaii will follow. This assessment estimates the ability of different ecosystems in the West to store carbon - information that will be vital for science-based land-use and land-management decisions. Geological Survey scientists, is part of a congressionally mandated national assessment of carbon storage and sequestration capacities by ecosystems. “This kind of groundbreaking science not only will help us be more effective stewards of our lands, but it also helps reveal how our forests, wetlands and rangelands in the West – and throughout the nation – are positively impacting the carbon cycle.” “This important study confirms the major role that our natural landscapes have in absorbing carbon and helping to counter-balance the nation's carbon emissions,” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. The 100 million tons sequestered in western ecosystems is an amount equivalent to – and counterbalances the emissions of – more than 83 million passenger cars a year in the United States, or nearly 5 percent of EPA's 2010 estimate of the nation's total greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon that is absorbed or “sequestered” through natural processes reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
WASHINGTON, DC-Forests, grasslands and shrublands and other ecosystems in the West sequester nearly 100 million tons (90.9 million metric tons) of carbon each year, according to a Department of the Interior report released today.
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