Forest soils lose a lot of carbon after storm damage

Due to microbial degradation and erosion, humus and thus carbon are lost and the rock emerges. Photo: Mathias Mayer Forest soils store large amounts of organic carbon. When storms devastate the forest, this carbon is lost and a large part enters the atmosphere as CO₂. Mountain forests are particularly vulnerable to such carbon losses, shows a study by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. In Swiss forests, soils store more CO₂ in the form of organic carbon than the entire above-ground biomass, i.e. trunks, branches and leaves. This means that forest soils play an important role in the fight against climate change. But what happens to the carbon in the soil when a storm knocks down the trees above it? That's what Mathias Mayer and his fellow researchers at WSL have been investigating.