Comments on Soimakallio et al. (2022) “Closing an open balance: The impact of increased tree harvest on forest carbon”

Abstract

Soimakallio et al. (2022) reviewed literature to draw leveraged conclusions on how forest carbon balances are affected by increased harvest rates. The conclusions are based on a carbon balance indicator that is not transparent and loses information when averaged over multiple factors. While potentially useful for comparing fossil fuel displacement by wood in alternative harvest scenarios of a given forest resource, the indicator should not be used to compare scenarios based on different forest and forestry conditions.

Response to comments by Vauhkonen

“…We thank (Vauhkonen, 2023) for his response to our paper on the impact of increased tree harvest on forest carbon (Soimakallio et al, 2022). Vauhkonen raised concerns regarding the applicability of the carbon balance indicator (CBI) applied in our paper to characterize the results in various contexts (point 1), the way the scenario pairs were compared (point 2), and the way the results were filtered (point 3).…”