Thus, perhaps the best way to view sinks is as a temporary low-cost mitigation strategy that can buy humanity three to five decades to make more fundamental adjustments. Looking Ahead Carbon sinks appear to offer substantial potential to assist humankind in addressing the challenge posed by climate change but they are more than forest ecosystems, however. Grasslands, wetlands, and agriculture all offer the potential to absorb carbon. Although grasslands do not build up a large aboveground mass like forests do, they are effective in the sequestration of carbon into the soil. Wetlands, too, hold large amounts of carbon in storage.
Agricultural lands can contribute to carbon absorption if proper management is followed.
For example, no-tillage agriculture offers the potential to restore large volumes of carbon to agricultural soils and thus contribute to the absorption of carbon from the atmosphere. Forests appear to offer the greatest potential because they can absorb large volumes of carbon both above and below the ground. Furthermore, the measurement and monitoring of aboveground forest carbon is reasonably simple. Carbon can be estimated from the standard forest inventories with only modest additional data requirements. Furthermore, if payments are made for carbon absorbed in the forest biomass, they typically do not reflect the true values because the forest soils also sequester carbon.