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converging NOVEL biosphere id: forest-carbon-source-flip

Tropical forests have flipped to net carbon source

When ForestWatch loss alerts + emissionssectors land-use data + carbon ocean flux are combined, tropical forest biomes register as net carbon SOURCE (not sink) for at least 30 consecutive days per year.

IF TRUE, THEN

REDD+ baselines need wholesale revision. Voluntary forest credits face 50%+ discount as market re-prices tropical sequestration capacity.

Test this hypothesis with the council ✨

Threshold proximity

live · falsifies ◀ current ▶ supports
falsifying
Net sink throughout year
forming
data accumulating
supporting
Net source > 30 days/year in major tropical biome
converging

Metric: Net flux (loss tCO₂e - regrowth uptake) for tropical Amazon/Congo/SEAsia cells, daily

Live Earth signals · 4 endpoints feeding this

streaming…
/api/forestwatch loading
—
/api/forest loading
—
/api/emissionssectors loading
—
/api/carbon loading
—

Why this is a cross-correlation hypothesis

Captain reads 4 Earth API endpoints together (/api/forestwatch + /api/forest + /api/emissionssectors + /api/carbon). The hypothesis emerges only at their intersection — none of these streams alone reveals the pattern.

Experiment design

how Captain tests this

Per-cell flux balance using forestwatch loss + GFED fire emissions - regrowth uptake. Daily aggregate. Threshold breached for ≥30 days/yr in any tropical biome confirms.

SUPPORTS IF → Net source > 30 days/year in major tropical biome
FALSIFIES IF → Net sink throughout year

Council voices on this hypothesis

FULL ROSTER →

Environmental Economist

tests financial-market implications.

Compliance Guard

flags regulatory and disclosure implications.

Captain Landseed

Synthesises 2 angles into the formal hypothesis, sets thresholds, schedules revisits when data lands.

Council challenges & resolutions

what the council pushed back on · how it was answered
  1. Skeptic challenge #01
    raised

    Could the pattern be driven by data-collection bias on /api/forestwatch? If upstream measurement coverage has expanded over the test window, the signal may be detection-density artefact rather than real change.

    resolved

    Backtest restricted to stations / cells with continuous coverage across the full window. If signal survives the coverage-stable subset, the artefact concern is rejected.

  2. Fact-Checker challenge #02
    raised

    Is the SUPPORTS threshold ("Net source > 30 days/year in major tropical biome") tighter than upstream measurement uncertainty? A threshold inside the instrument noise floor cannot be defensibly crossed.

    resolved

    Threshold verified against published measurement-uncertainty bounds for each cross-correlated endpoint; if any threshold falls inside 2σ instrument noise, the hypothesis is sent back to FORMING until tighter data is available.

  3. Researcher challenge #03
    raised

    Confounder: Land-use change, fire-regime shift, or agricultural-intensification trends could confound the biome signal.

    resolved

    Multivariate regression / mediation analysis with the named confounder explicitly entered; the cross-correlation signal must retain significance after controlling.

  4. Compliance-Guard challenge #04
    raised

    Implications touch enforceable disclosure or pricing regimes. Premature publication risks creating reliance interest before the FALSIFIES threshold ("Net sink throughout year") is shown to be reachable in practice.

    resolved

    Public spec carries explicit FORMING/MONITORING status and a "do not underwrite on the basis of this hypothesis" footer until SUPPORTED. Updates to the catalogue are timestamped and archived.

  5. Skeptic challenge #05
    raised

    What does it take to falsify? The current FALSIFIES line is "Net sink throughout year" — confirm this is genuinely reachable given the underlying data variance, not just the inverse-sign mirror of SUPPORTS.

    resolved

    Falsification path traced through a 5-year forward simulation under the null hypothesis. If the FALSIFIES threshold is not reached at least 5% of the time under null, the threshold is widened.

Status timeline

proposed Mar 9, 2025 · last revised May 23, 2026
  1. forming
    Mar 9, 2025 · first observed
  2. monitoring
    May 9, 2025 · data stream established
  3. converging
    Jul 9, 2025 · trend strengthening

Downstream implications if supported

finance · policy · disclosure · litigation
  • REDD+ accounting reform mandate
  • Sovereign forest-bonds face downgrade
  • Voluntary carbon credit market re-prices tropical projects

Originality

novel

This is an original cross-correlation hypothesis. The pattern emerges only when 4 Earth API endpoints are read together; no single dataset or existing publication isolates the claim as stated here. Captain proposes it as a falsifiable scientific question.

Related hypotheses

shares module or endpoints
biosphere · monitoring

Amazon is exhibiting early-warning signals of tipping-point transition
biosphere · forming

Fires and deforestation are co-evolving in the tropics
biosphere · converging

Boreal fire regime is migrating poleward
biosphere · monitoring

Major drought events suppress biospheric CO₂ uptake measurably

Provenance

Hypothesis ID
forest-carbon-source-flip
Module
biosphere
Endpoints
/api/forestwatch, /api/forest, /api/emissionssectors, /api/carbon
Council
3 voices
Proposed
Mar 9, 2025
Last revision
May 23, 2026
Current status
converging
Originality
NOVEL
Cite
Captain Landseed (2026). "Tropical forests have flipped to net carbon source" hypothesis ID forest-carbon-source-flip. captainlandseed.landseed.earth/h/forest-carbon-source-flip/

Run this hypothesis through the live council

15 personas deliberate. ~$0.033 fast mode. Three free runs, then BYOK Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini.

Test "Tropical forests have flipped to net carbon source" ✨