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USDA Forest Service - Region 5 and Pacific Southwest Research Station (PSW): The USDA Forest Service makes no warranty, expressed or implied, including the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, nor assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, reliability, completeness, or utility of these geospatial data, or for the improper or incorrect use of these geospatial data. These geospatial data and related maps or graphics are not legal documents and are not intended to be used as such. The data and maps may not be used to determine title, ownership, legal descriptions or boundaries, legal jurisdiction, or restrictions that may be in place on either public or private land. Natural hazards may or may not be depicted on the data and maps, and land users should exercise due caution. The data are dynamic and may change over time. The user is responsible to verify the limitations of the geospatial data and to use the data accordingly. |
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Dead carbon includes dead and down (litter, duff, fine, coarse, and heavy fuels, including 1000+ hour logs) which are inherently unstable due to prevailing fire and decay processes, and a destabilizing factor in the fire-adapted forests of the Sierra to the extent that they contribute to uncharacteristic fire behavior. Also added to that dead carbon, the carbon from the canopies of small trees, which is readily released during fire (specifically, trees less than 10 inches in diameter). Standing dead C is also included, representing the slower leak from the landscape carbon stock. This is a proxy for unstable carbon; fire liable carbon on the landscape which is more vulnerable to combustion.--------A recent paper (Bernal et al., 2022), suggests that due to drought/temps expected beyond 2040, the Sierra Nevada may not be able to support carbon loads of aboveground live trees over 20 Mg C/ha (note that they report biomass values, not carbon values). Carbon values are generally assumed to be half of biomass (See CAL FIRE’s “AB 1504” methodology, Christensen et al., 2019). Conversion from short tons per acre (the default F3 output units) to Mg/ha requires multiplication by 2.2417023114334.----------------This raster has been modified from the base 30m version in the following ways:-------- - It has been aggregated from a 30m to a 300m scale by averaging across the 30m values-------- - The normalized values are rescaled based on nearly the full range of actual values, with the most extreme values truncated at the 1st and 99th percentile to reduce the influence of outliers on the expressed range of normalized values, with -1 representing low values, and 1 representing high values. This interpretation reflects the desire for increased carbon sequestration, with higher values considered more favorable. However, live carbon is more desirable (stable) than dead carbon, and dead carbon has negative consequences in terms of fuels and fire dynamics (see the Fire Dynamics pillar).----------------- Unit Of Measure: Mg C/ha |