Howland Forest research A lasting Woodwell legacy Miles Grant Director of Publications & Media Relations
A one-square-mile plot of Maine’s vast, old-growth woods known as Howland Forest has become the site of one of the world’s longest-running scientific studies of how climate change and trees interact—and Woodwell Climate Research Center researchers have been there from the start. The research at Howland Forest has highlighted one aspect of the carbon cycle that we don’t fully understand yet—how carbon absorption by trees changes as they grow and age. Previous theory held that trees grew fast and stored a lot of carbon when they were younger, then gradually stored less and less with passing years. But Howland’s trees, many of which are hundreds of years old, are absorbing carbon at rates higher than would have been predicted.
Fall 2020
Climate Science for Change
13
