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Category: Project

Description: Carbon stored on the land has the potential to be released to the atmosphere and act as a greenhouse gas, influencing global climate. To predict future climate, it is imperative to understand where and how much carbon is stored across the landscape to understand how much carbon might be released to and/or sequestered from the atmosphere in the future. We quantify carbon storage in downed wood and soil in mountain river valley bottoms, finding that mountain river valley bottoms are high magnitude carbon storage zones on the landscape, and that the legacy of past glaciation, climate, and modern erosional and depositional processes regulate the age and quantity of stored OC. Our results imply that human actions can change how much carbon is stored in mountain river valley bottoms, and how it is stored there. Understanding the distribution of carbon across the landscape, especially in carbon-rich zones such as valley bottoms, requires an understanding of both the historic and modern processes shaping the landscape and vegetation.