Assessing the effect of climate change on carbon sequestration in a Mexican dry forest in the Yucatan Peninsula

• Carbon dynamics in Karstic area.
• Tropical dry forests.
• Effect of climate change on carbon sequestration in tropical forests.
• Impact of warming on tropical forests.

Assessing the effect of climate change on carbon sequestration in tropical forest ecosystems is important to inform monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) for reducing deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), and to effectively assess forest management options under climate change. Two process-based models, Forest-DNDC and Biome-BGC, with different spatial modeling scales were evaluated to estimate the potential effect of climate change on carbon sequestration in a tropical dry semi-deciduous forest in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The results from the simulations using the two models show that carbon sequestration in this dry forest is highly sensitive to warming. Carbon uptake in this forest may increase or decrease slightly with a corresponding increase or decrease in precipitation; however, with an increase in temperature, carbon uptake may decrease significantly, showing that warming may be the main climate factor that impacts carbon storage in this tropical dry forest. Model performance evaluation indicates that both models may be used to estimate C stocks, but DNDC may be better than BGC for assessing the effect of climate change on C dynamics.