Hurricanes significantly influence carbon balance of eastern US forests
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.027498
New Scientist : In 2007 a study showed that the 320 million trees killed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 had released 105 teragrams of carbon. That is more than half the yearly amount of carbon absorbed by US forests. Justin Fisk of the University of Maryland in College Park and his colleagues have now completed a study of the impact of hurricanes on carbon absorption by forests on the US East Coast over the past 150 years. They found that from 1850 to 1900, hurricanes caused a net release of carbon. Fisk believes that was because of the wider area of forestation and the higher number of storms during that period. But in the 20th century, as forest regrowth outpaced the destruction, the forests returned to being a carbon sink.
