The price of snow: albedo valuation and a case study for forest management

Abstract

Several climate frameworks have included the role of carbon storage in natural landscapes as a potential mechanism for climate change mitigation. This has resulted in an incentive to grow and maintain intact long-lived forest ecosystems. However, recent research has suggested that the influence of albedo-related radiative forcing can impart equal and in some cases greater magnitudes of climate mitigation compared to carbon storage in forests where snowfall is common and biomass is slow-growing. While several methodologies exist for relating albedo-associated radiative forcing to carbon storage for the analysis of the tradeoffs of these ecosystem services, they are varied, and they have yet to be contrasted in a case study with implications for future forest management. Here we utilize four methodologies for calculating a shadow price for albedo radiative forcing and apply the resulting eight prices to an ecological and economic forest model to examine the effects on optimal rotation periods on two different forest stands in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, USA. These pricing methodologies produce distinctly different shadow prices of albedo, varying from a high of 9.36 × 10 −4 and a low of 1.75 × 10 −5 $w −1 yr −1 in the initial year, to a high of 0.019 and a low of 3.55 × 10 −4 $w −1 yr −1 in year 200 of the simulation. When implemented in the forest model, optimal rotation periods also varied considerably, from a low of 2 to a high of 107 years for a spruce-fir stand and from 35 to 80 years for a maple-beech-birch stand. Our results suggest that the choice of climate metrics and pricing methodologies for use with forest albedo alter albedo prices considerably, may substantially adjust optimal rotation period length, and therefore may have consequences with respect to forest land cover change.

Profitability analysis of family-size Biogas Plant Installation in West Hararghe Zone, Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia

“…As the plant size is increased the installation cost is proportionally increased (costs increased proportionally between plant size and installation cost) ( Table 2). This is consistent with Lutz and Howarth (2015), as biogas plant size raises the installation cost per m 3 of plant is increased. Nevertheless, this installation cost was not much high when compared with the 2008 baseline survey of NBPE in programme implementation document which is about ETB 13,000 for 6 m 3 size (Eshete et al, 2006).…”

“…In this study, the monetary benefits of biogas plant were computed only for the saved costs on firewood and kerosene substituted by biogas energy and saved costs on chemical fertilizer substituted by bio-slurry because of in the study area; there is no direct selling of biogas and bio-slurry in a market. The time saved due to biogas technology was not estimated because time saving as a result of redundant wood collection and cooking practices is categorized as an economic value (shadow prices), not monetary benefit (Lutz and Howarth, 2015).…”

Water and life from snow: A trillion dollar science question

“…This cooling benefit doubles when we add in the effect of snow‐covered Arctic sea ice [ Curry et al ., ]. Economic losses from reductions in snow‐covered area [ Mudryk et al ., ], and the associated losses of Earth cooling, have been valued at $575 billion [ Euskirchen et al ., ; see also Lutz and Howarth , ]. Beyond these essential life services, snow also provides a platform for the multibillion dollar outdoor recreation industry [ Burakowski and Magnusson , ].…”

Market-Level Implications of Regulating Forest Carbon Storage and Albedo for Climate Change Mitigation

“…Results from Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) suggest that it is optimal to tighten climate policy over time, as in the “changing prices” scenario (United States Government 2015). This pricing convention is followed by Lutz and Howarth (2014, 2015) and Lutz et al (2016). However, other previous stand-level studies regarding forest management for timber, carbon and albedo (Thompson, Adams, and Sessions 2009, Matthies and Valsta 2016) and market-level studies focusing on carbon pricing (Cunha-e-Sá, Rosa, and Costa-Duarte 2013, Sjølie, Latta, and Solberg 2013b, Lintunen and Uusivuori 2016, Tahvonen and Rautiainen 2017) and carbon and albedo pricing (Sjølie, Latta and Solberg 2013a) have been conducted assuming constant prices.…”

“…Stand-level forest management for timber, carbon, and albedo has been previously studied by Thompson, Adams, and Sessions (2009), Lutz and Howarth (2014), Lutz and Howarth (2015), Lutz et al (2016), and Matthies and Valsta (2016). However, the stand-level approach has two important limitations.…”