Global Forest Carbon Sequestration Potential under Future Climate Change: Carbon Sequestration Potential Gap (CSPG2100) and Master Dataset Index

Overview This repository is the master dataset and documentation page for the Global Forest Carbon Sequestration Potential under Future Climate Change data collection accompanying the manuscript: The effects of global climate change on forest carbon sequestration potential in vegetation. The objective of this data collection is to quantify the spatially explicit potential for global forests to accumulate vegetation carbon through 2100 and to evaluate how this potential is affected by future climate change, atmospheric CO₂ concentration, and disturbance. The data collection contains two closely related products: Carbon Sequestration Potential Gap (CSPG2100) — the primary summary product, representing the net change in live vegetation biomass carbon between contemporary conditions in 2020 and projected conditions in 2100. Annual Biomass Projections — annual live vegetation biomass projections from 2021 through 2100 that describe the transient forest dynamics used to derive CSPG2100. This repository contains the complete CSPG2100 dataset, including the Reference Simulation and all future projection scenarios, and serves as the master documentation and repository index for the full data collection. Because of their substantially larger data volume, the annual biomass projections are distributed across 17 companion Zenodo repositories. Links to all companion repositories are provided below. Method summary Contemporary forest conditions were initialized using the Ecosystem Demography model (ED v3.0) constrained by global observations, including approximately 3.77 billion spaceborne lidar observations from NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) and Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2). Starting from these observation-constrained contemporary forest conditions, ED v3.0 was used to simulate annual live vegetation biomass from 2021 through 2100. A Reference Simulation repeats present-day climate, atmospheric CO₂ concentration, and disturbance conditions throughout the simulation period and provides a baseline against which future projections are evaluated. Future simulations span combinations of: 4 Earth System Models (ESMs): GFDL-ESM4 GISS-E2-1-G EC-Earth3 MPI-ESM1.2-HR 4 Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios: SSP126 SSP245 SSP370 SSP585 4 forcing cases: Future climate Future climate + atmospheric CO₂ Future climate + disturbance Future climate + atmospheric CO₂ + disturbance These combinations produce 64 future projection scenarios, in addition to the Reference Simulation. The annual biomass projections are subsequently used to derive CSPG2100, which summarizes the corresponding net change in live vegetation biomass carbon between 2020 and 2100. Data products 1. Carbon Sequestration Potential Gap (CSPG2100) The Carbon Sequestration Potential Gap (CSPG2100) is the primary summary product of this data collection. CSPG2100 represents the spatially explicit difference in live vegetation biomass carbon between 2020 and 2100 for each simulation. The data are provided separately for: Existing forest, representing changes in vegetation biomass within forest present under contemporary conditions. New forest, representing vegetation carbon accumulation associated with forest expansion during the simulation period. The CSPG2100 dataset in this repository includes the Reference Simulation and all 64 future projection scenarios. File format and spatial characteristics Attribute Description Geographic coverage Global Spatial resolution 0.01° (~1 km) Coordinate reference system WGS84 (EPSG:4326) Variable Change in live vegetation biomass carbon between 2020 and 2100 Forest components Existing forest and new forest Units kg C m⁻² File format GeoTIFF Scenarios The CSPG2100 files include: Reference Simulation Future climate Future climate + atmospheric CO₂ Future climate + disturbance Future climate + atmospheric CO₂ + disturbance For each future forcing case, projections are provided for SSP126, SSP245, SSP370, and SSP585 and for each of the four Earth System Models. File naming Reference files follow the general naming convention: Global_CSPG2100_<ForestComponent>_REF_2020_2100.tif Future projection files follow: Global_CSPG2100_<ForestComponent>_<ESM>_<SSP>_<CASE>_2020_2100.tif where: <ForestComponent> identifies existing_forest or new_forest <ESM> identifies the Earth System Model <SSP> identifies the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway <CASE> identifies the forcing combination Repository Master dataset and CSPG2100 repository https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21706799 2. Annual Biomass Projections, 2021–2100 The annual biomass dataset contains the complete transient live vegetation biomass projections used to derive CSPG2100. Annual live vegetation biomass is provided separately for existing forest and new forest from 2021 through 2100. Because of the total data volume, the annual biomass projections are distributed across 17 Zenodo repositories: 1 repository for the Reference Simulation 16 repositories for future projections, representing four forcing cases × four SSPs Each future repository contains projections from all four Earth System Models. File format and spatial characteristics Attribute Description Geographic coverage Global Spatial resolution 0.01° (~1 km) Coordinate reference system WGS84 (EPSG:4326) Variable Live vegetation biomass carbon Forest components Existing forest and new forest Units kg C m⁻² Time period 2021–2100 Temporal resolution Annual File format GeoTIFF Data type int16 Scale factor 0.01 Offset 0.0 NoData value -32768 Values are stored as scaled integers: Physical value = stored value × 0.01 + offset Most GIS software automatically applies the scale factor. File organization Annual biomass projections are divided into eight decadal GeoTIFF files for each forest component: 2021–2030 2031–2040 2041–2050 2051–2060 2061–2070 2071–2080 2081–2090 2091–2100 Each GeoTIFF contains one raster band for each calendar year within the corresponding decade. Embedded GeoTIFF band descriptions identify the corresponding calendar year. The Reference Simulation repository contains: 8 decadal files for existing forest 8 decadal files for new forest Each future-projection repository contains projections for all four Earth System Models. For each ESM, the repository contains: 8 decadal files for existing forest 8 decadal files for new forest File naming Reference files follow: Biomass_REF_<ForestComponent>_<StartYear>_<EndYear>.tif Future projection files follow: Biomass_<ESM>_<SSP>_<CASE>_<ForestComponent>_<StartYear>_<EndYear>.tif Annual Biomass Projection Repository Index Reference Simulation Present-day climate, atmospheric CO₂ concentration, and disturbance are repeated throughout the simulation period. Repository DOI Annual Biomass Projections — Reference Simulation https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21706977 Future climate Climate varies according to the corresponding Earth System Model and SSP, while atmospheric CO₂ concentration and disturbance remain at reference conditions. Scenario DOI Climate, SSP126 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707054 Climate, SSP245 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707060 Climate, SSP370 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707076 Climate, SSP585 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707088 Future climate + atmospheric CO₂ Climate and atmospheric CO₂ concentration vary according to the corresponding future scenario, while disturbance remains at its reference condition. Scenario DOI Climate + CO₂, SSP126 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707525 Climate + CO₂, SSP245 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707555 Climate + CO₂, SSP370 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707562 Climate + CO₂, SSP585 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707565 Future climate + disturbance Climate and disturbance vary according to the corresponding future scenario, while atmospheric CO₂ concentration remains at its reference condition. Scenario DOI Climate + Disturbance, SSP126 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707567 Climate + Disturbance, SSP245 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707571 Climate + Disturbance, SSP370 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707575 Climate + Disturbance, SSP585 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707582 Future climate + atmospheric CO₂ + disturbance Climate, atmospheric CO₂ concentration, and disturbance all vary according to the corresponding future scenario. Scenario DOI Climate + CO₂ + Disturbance, SSP126 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707592 Climate + CO₂ + Disturbance, SSP245 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707597 Climate + CO₂ + Disturbance, SSP370 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707603 Climate + CO₂ + Disturbance, SSP585 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21707605 All annual biomass repositories use the same spatial resolution, variable definitions, metadata structure, and file organization. They differ only in the forcing case and SSP identified in the repository title. Relationship between CSPG2100 and the annual biomass projections The two data products provide complementary representations of the same simulations. The annual biomass projections provide the full transient evolution of live vegetation biomass from 2021 through 2100. The CSPG2100 dataset provides a compact summary of long-term forest carbon sequestration potential by representing the difference between live vegetation biomass carbon in 2100 and contemporary biomass carbon in 2020. Users interested primarily in the spatial distribution and magnitude of long-term forest carbon sequestration potential can use the CSPG2100 dataset directly. Users interested in the timing, rate, or transient dynamics of biomass change can use the corresponding annual biomass projections. Related resources Source data and reproducible analysis code Source data underlying the manuscript figures and Python code used to reproduce the analyses and figures are archived separately on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21418643 Citation If you use data from this collection, please cite the specific Zenodo repository or repositories from which the data were obtained, together with the accompanying manuscript. For the master CSPG2100 dataset: Ma, L., Hurtt, G., et al. Global Forest Carbon Sequestration Potential under Future Climate Change: Carbon Sequestration Potential Gap (CSPG2100) and Master Dataset Index. Zenodo.https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21706799 If annual biomass projections are used, please additionally cite the corresponding annual biomass repository or repositories listed above. Associated manuscript Ma, L., Hurtt, G., et al. The effects of global climate change on forest carbon sequestration potential in vegetation.