Names: Shreeya Wadodkar, Diamond Moore, Amoni Smith

Abstract:
My group went to Duke Forest and collected information from two different age forests in order
to measure carbon intake between different ages of trees. This information is important when
evaluating the effects of climate change and how fast our climate has actually risen within recent
years. We marked off a 10 meter by 10 meter square on two sides of the forest (the old side first,
and then the newer side). Then we collected the diameter of all the trees in the square (within
two finger lengths in width) located on the older side of Duke Forest. We then picked one tree,
found the height of that tree, and extracted a core from the tree using an increment borer. These
same steps were repeated in our 10m by 10m square plot on the newer side of Duke Forest. We
recorded all of this data on a chart. The older forest of trees had accumulated the most carbon all
together. We found that the younger trees on average were predicted to accumulate 74822.5
grams of CO2 within the next 5 years versus the drastically less 18485.2 grams of CO2 the older
trees were predicted to accumulate. We also found that the accumulation of CO2 for younger
trees was an average of 3552 grams per m2 and only 1114 grams per m2 for the older trees.
Taking this information into account, we concluded that the younger trees have accumulated
more carbon than the older trees within a smaller time frame and these themes are predicted to
continue.

Given Tree Information:

Tree type: Young Pine tree

DBH=33.5

Height-24.5m

1) Find the Volume

Volume formula for this tree= 19.466*(33.5)^(1.851623)*(24.5)^1.29951

V=828552 cm^3

2) Find the Mass

Mass= 353792 grams/cm^3

M=(0.427*828552)

M= 353792 grams per cm^3

3) Find the carbon content

Carbon:159205
C=(353792)(.45)= 159205

4) Find the Co2 Equivalent

5) Co2 eq.: 583757

(3.666666666667)(159205 )= 583757

5) Carbon Accumulation - Estimate the DBH of one tree 5 and 10 years ago

Tree# YOUNG PLOT DBH 5 years ago DBH 10 years

ago

1 33.5cm 29.5cm 25.5cm

6) Which of the two stands, on average, sequesters the largest amount of carbon?

-Older trees

7) What is the CO2 offset potential?

Student Emissions and Offset Area:

Shreeya’s calculation-

- My house is 128 miles from NCSSM

- A regular car emmits 362.874 grams of CO2 per mile
- 128*362.874= 46447.872
- 42007/ 46447.872 = 0.904 m^2 of forest needed to sequester my emissions.

Amoni’s calculation:

● My house is 145 miles from NCSSM

● Regular car emits 362.874g CO2/mi
● My CO2 offset is around 0.80m^2

Diamond’s calculation-

Took 140 miles to get to NCSSM.

I emitted 57540g CO2

-older forest sequestered 42,007g CO2/m2.

m2 = 42007/57540 = 0.73 m2 of forest to offset my drive!