近日，美国犹他大学William R. L. Anderegg团队报道了森林碳协议低估了气候驱动的碳损失风险。该研究于2026年5月20日发表在《自然》杂志上。

尽管减少化石燃料排放对减缓气候变化仍然至关重要，但维持和增强森林碳汇已被广泛推崇为基于自然的气候解决方案。然而，在估算森林对气候减缓的潜在作用时，可能导致森林碳储量损失的干扰因素却很少被考虑。这使得难以合理设定“缓冲池”的规模——该机制旨在补偿碳信用项目中非预期的碳损失。

研究组利用森林清查、卫星数据、干扰模拟和机器学习等方法，绘制了美国本土（CONUS）因自然干扰导致的碳逆转（碳损失）风险分布图。结果表明，气候变化增加了美国本土森林百年尺度上因自然干扰导致碳损失的风险，尤其是在加利福尼亚州和西部山间地区。当前美国本土最大的森林气候减缓项目所采用的缓冲池规模可能过小，平均仅为所需规模的六分之一；若考虑未来气候情景、干扰严重程度和其他碳库的不确定性，这一偏差可能在2.2倍至8.0倍之间。研究组提供了自然干扰导致森林碳损失的长期风险空间分布图，这表明当前构建碳抵消缓冲池的方法学需要进行修订，才能在气候变化背景下取得成功。

附：英文原文

Title: Forest carbon protocols underestimate climate-driven carbon loss risks

Author: Wu, Chao, Badgley, Grayson, Goulden, Michael L., Randerson, James T., Trugman, Anna T., Wang, Jonathan A., Yang, Linqing, Acil, Nezha, Cook-Patton, Susan C., Cullenward, Danny, Davis, Steven J., Williams, Christopher A., Anderegg, William R. L.

Issue&Volume: 2026-05-20

Abstract: Although the reduction of fossil fuel emissions remains of the utmost importance to mitigate climate change, maintaining and enhancing carbon sinks in forests have been widely promoted as nature-based climate solutions1,2,3,4. However, disturbances that could result in losses of forest carbon stocks are poorly accounted for when estimating the potential role of forests in climate mitigation5,6,7. This makes it difficult to appropriately size ‘buffer pools’: a mechanism designed to compensate for unintended carbon losses in carbon crediting projects8,9. Here we use forest inventory, satellite data, disturbance modelling and machine learning to map reversal (carbon loss) risk in the contiguous United States (CONUS) from natural disturbance. Across CONUS forests, we show that climate change increases the 100-year risk of carbon losses from natural disturbance, particularly in California and the Intermountain West. The current buffer pool of the largest CONUS forest climate mitigation programme is likely too small by an average factor of 6.3, and this could range from 2.2- to 8.0-fold too small when considering uncertainties around future climate scenarios, disturbance severity and other carbon pools. We provide spatially explicit maps of the long-term risks to forest carbon losses from natural disturbances, which highlight that current methodologies used for constructing carbon offset buffer pools require revisions to succeed under climate change.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10571-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10571-y