Carbon Storage and Albedo Impact for US Forests by Age and Type

Estimates of carbon storage and carbon-equivalent albedo impacts for US forests are derived from USDA Forest Service field measurements on approximately 125,000 forested plots. The data, compiled by US Forest Service researchers, includes standard error for carbon storage and asymmetrical uncertainty bounds for albedo impacts. Soil organic carbon is omitted, but all other above- and below-ground carbon pools are included.

Use Cases

• Modeling forest carbon sequestration potential based on age and forest type.
• Assessing the climate trade-offs between carbon storage and albedo changes.
• Calibrating remote sensing products for forest carbon and albedo using ground-truth data.

Strengths

• Estimates are derived from field measurements on approximately 125,000 forested field plots.
• Includes both carbon storage and carbon-equivalent albedo impact metrics with associated uncertainty measures.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Soil organic carbon is omitted from the carbon storage estimates.

Provenance

Source

US Forest Service

Collection Method

Field measurements from USDA Forest Service plots combined with Landsat-derived albedo products.

Geography

United States