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Ecology
Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation and regrowth based on satellite observations for the 1980s and 1990s
*Department of Geography and Earth System Science
Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
20742; Woods Hole Research Center, P.O. Box 296, Woods
Hole, MA 02543; ¶Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie
Institution of Washington, Stanford, CA 94305-1297; and||
Department of Geography, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, MI 48824
Contributed by Christopher B. Field and approved September 13, 2002
Carbon fluxes from tropical deforestation and regrowth are
highly uncertain components of the contemporary carbon budget,
due in part to the lack of spatially explicit and consistent
information on changes in forest area. We estimate fluxes for the 1980s
and 1990s using subpixel estimates of percent tree cover derived from
coarse (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Advanced
Very High Resolution Radiometer) satellite data in combination with a
terrestrial carbon model. The satellite-derived estimates of change in
forest area are lower than national reports and remote-sensing surveys
from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Forest
Resource Assessment (FRA) in all tropical regions, especially for the
1980s. However, our results indicate that the net rate of tropical
forest clearing increased 
10% from the 1980s to 1990s, most notably
in southeast Asia, in contrast to an 11% reduction reported by the
FRA. We estimate net mean annual carbon fluxes from tropical
deforestation and regrowth to average 0.6 (0.3–0.8) and 0.9 (0.5–1.4)
petagrams (Pg)•yr–1 for the 1980s and 1990s,
respectively. Compared with previous estimates of 1.9 (0.6–2.5)
Pg•yr–1 based on FRA national statistics of changes
in forest area, this alternative estimate suggests less "missing"
carbon from the global carbon budget but increasing emissions from
tropical land-use change.
Abbreviations: Pg, petagram(s); FAO, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization; FRA, Forest Resource Assessment; IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; AVHRR, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer; PTC, percent tree cover; PTCA, PTC-corrected area
To whom correspondence should be addressed at:
University of Maryland, 2181 Lefrak Hall, College Park, MD 20742.
E-mail: rd63{at}umail.umd.edu.
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