Tropical climates - The Global Climate System: Patterns, Processes, and Teleconnections - page 85

Figure 3.13 Land use/
land cover classifications of a
small (12.5 km 5.5 km)
study area near Altamira,
Brazil, using computer
analyzed August 1985,
1988, and 1991 Landsat TM.
For color version see Plate 5 .
their sequestered carbon when a moist mature forest was cut/burned a few
years prior to 1985. However, after a short phase of crop or grazing, the return
to forest was very fast; thus between 1985 and 1991 a rapid return of
sequestered carbon derived from CO 2 occurred.
Tables 3.1 and 3.2 give the percentage of LULC by class, for the small
study area and the large TM scene respectively, for each of the three years of
remote sensing data used. Analysis of these tables shows the rate at which
some features are losing biomass while others, through succession, are
regaining lost biomass. The tables can provide qualitative assessments of
overall gain or loss of sequestered carbon during a designated period of study.
The exact C/CO 2 net gain or loss of a given area requires an association of
specific biomass gains and losses to LULC features.