Who would have ever guessed trees store carbon by utilizing the gas of plant photosynthesis, carbon dioxide, and in an “immense, profound” way? From the Institute of Arctic Biology, where they seem to see no positive benefit to this, but worry about fires and insect damages instead. In a previous story, it was shown by NASA that the biosphere is booming thanks to CO2.
World’s forests role in carbon storage immense, profound
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 July 2011
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Until now, scientists were uncertain about how much and where in the world terrestrial carbon is being stored. In the July 14 issue of Science Express, scientists report that, between 1990 and 2007, the world’s forests stored about 2.4 gigatons of carbon per year.
Their results suggest that forests account for almost all of the world’s land-based carbon uptake. Boreal forests are estimated to be responsible for 22 percent of the carbon stored in the forests. A warming climate has the potential to increase fires and insect damage in the boreal forest and reduce its capacity to sequester carbon.
“Our results imply that clearly, forests play a critical role in Earth’s terrestrial carbon balance, and exert considerable control over the evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide,” said A. David McGuire, co-author and professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology and co-leader of the USGS Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit.
The report includes comprehensive estimates of carbon for the world’s forests based on recent inventory data. The scientists included information on changes in carbon pools from dead wood, harvested wood products, living plants and plant litter, and soils to estimate changes in carbon across countries, regions and continents that represent boreal, temperate and tropical forests.
The authors note that understanding the present and future role of forests in the sequestration and emission of carbon is essential for informed discussions on limiting greenhouse gases.
– 30 –
ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: A. David McGuire, professor of landscape ecology, Institute of Arctic Biology, USGS Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, 907-474-6242, admcguire@alaska.edu
AUTHORS: USDA Forest Service, Newtown Square, PA, USA. Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871 China. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093 China. Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, USA. University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Victoria, Canada. School of Geography, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria. Global Carbon project, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Canberra, Australia. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE) CEA-UVSQ-CNRS, Gif sur Yvette, France. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK, USA. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA.
NOTE TO EDITORS: Email is the best method for contacting McGuire. The abstract for the paper, “A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests,” is available at: www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/07/13/science.1201609
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I bet over 50% of politicians worldwide cannot answer the question why no ground disappears from the pot in which the tree grows up. They should not be allowed to say anything about CO2 in the first place.
did something similar on this:
http://justmeint.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/duh-who-would-have-known/
Now let me see who was it said to me planting forests would not be any good in reducing the CO2 levels. You’ll probably find the rise in CO2 is mostly all down to deforestation. It all began when the chainsaw was invented!
Errr, no they are wrong. Most trees do not lock up and store any CO2 whatsoever, which is why I would never contribute to those ‘offset’ scams, even if I believed that CO2 is a problem.
Most trees nowadays are used as lumber. And at the end of that wood’s useful life, it is invariably burned – giving back its CO2 to the atmosphere. Even wood left to rot in the forest will give its CO2 back to the atmosphere. Thus trees are only a temporary CO2 store, and not a solution to high atmospheric CO2 levels.
You need very special conditions, to produce a coal seam, and really store the CO2. You may find that northern bogs are better than trees, in that respect.
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@Dave the Engineer says:
July 18, 2011 at 4:35 pm
This may be a case where “stimulus spending” actually works. We stimulate the carbon based lifeforms of the world with cheap (waste) CO2 and we get increased production of shrubbery.
“”————————“———————-
this is the definitive example of stimulus spending.
Here, the carbon based lifeforms being stimulated are eco-mentalist professors/researchers/”scientists” and the stimulus is our money, The increased production involves either Statements of the Bleeding Obvious, or complete and utter carp.
And I thought forests frequently thrived after fires, with some species of tree actually highly dependent upon the effects of lightning induced fires?
The capacity for these idiots to find a negative in amongst the positives is utterly breathtaking
Are these people getting paid for this junior school lesson 1 stuff?
Trees use up carbon dioxide? Who’d a thunk it? I’m amazed!
Sarc/
“And for their next
trickpeer reviewed scientific paper, ladeez ‘n’ gennelmen, the team will study forest fires and reveal … Trenberth’s Missing Heat!”Ta-Daaa!
I hear a lot about forests absorbing CO2 (tropical and other)
My thought is that there a lot af grass about ,but I see no referance to that as a CO2 sink.
But what would I know I am only an old calipygian.
Warmistas seem to have real trouble dealing with negative feedbacks. It’s almost like a third rail, or no-go zone, because once they acknowledge one, who knows where it might lead?
Can anyone who has read Primo Levi’s part biographical narrative, ‘The Periodic Table,’ forget his final chapter imagining the story of an atom of carbon,the element of life . Levi traces its history from its imprisonment in limestone congealed in the monotony of an eternal present, ‘an imprisonment, for this potentially living personage, worthy of the Catholic Hell,’ to its escape into a lime kiln and out in a gaseous cloud, riding for eight years upon the wind, until it comes to rest upon a vine leaf where it is miraculously transformed into part of that permanent life store ‘upon which all that grows draws, and the ultimate destiny of all flesh’. Continuing its many transmutations , it has now entered a human cell, the cell belongs to a brain, and it is Primo Levi’s brain and the cell is in charge of his writing, making his hand ‘run along a certain path on the paper’ marking it ‘ with these volutes that are signs’…guiding’ this hand of mine to impress on the paper this dot, here, this one.’
Bill Illis says:
July 18, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Sorry, your calculation is missing important figures and is therefore misleading (ie cherry-picking …)
The sources that you specify are soley man made and cover only a fraction of the total carbon cycle. Include the largest and most important source (“forgot“?) and discover that there are more missing …
Even an important sink is missing – plants (in addition to previously mentioned forests) – which also includes phytoplankton. Phytoplankton only are considered to generate half of the oxygen present in the atmosphere, so the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide molecules are “consumed” in the process …
And still, the carbon dioxide promotes the Earth (which was taught during the 1970s and 1980s in the Swedish schools, before the Left wing changed its politics and managed to cause enough damage …)! The more carbon dioxide, the more oxygene, the more merrier …
But you know this, don’t you?
I see one possibility (probably the only) to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that is to regulate the amount of forest. Not only the the rainforest, but all forests.
Has anyone compared how human spread geographically and evolved on Earth (with deforestation), with the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? (Although it probably doesn’t matter, from a historical point of view …) [Hope I’ve got this right …]
But if more trees are grown, won’t that lead to an increase in the number of Ursidae? The latter are alleged to have methane-releasing habits in arboreal environments.
There’s a lot of carbon stored in grass as well – I’m pretty sure some of these warmistas must be releasing it when they smoke the stuff… How else can they be arriving at some of their conclusions?
The problem Anthony is that there is far more carbon in the atmosphere than can be absorbed by trees, the oceans or the soil. We’ve reached a saturation point, it seems. Additionally, the northern forests are being devastated by worms and beetles which are multiplying in an out-of-control fashion, in the absence of cold weather which would otherwise kill them in the winter months The combination of drought conditions, and dying (dead) forests, contribute to a much higher risk of wild fire devastation, as can be seen in many parts of the world as we speak.
With the passing of the 30 year warming cycle and the start of the cooling cycle Australia this past twelve months has seen a return of plentiful rains. The flora is almost totally drought and fire proof. they just get by. This years the eucalyptus and the native shrubs and grasses have gone feral. They usually flower once for a week or so then put on new leaves and growth. This year continuosly in a short cycle they have flowered and grown repeatedly for nearly the entire year. Thus our forests and scrub lands have gorged themselves on the food of life. Billions of tons of new growth and our stupid government is bringing in a tax on carbon dioxide. Australia has sucked in this year more than we have ever produced!!
Re: To myself:
Has anyone compared how human spread geographically and evolved on Earth (with deforestation), with the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? (Although it probably doesn’t matter, from a historical point of view …) [Hope I’ve got this right …]
No, I didn’t! It should have been something like this:
Has anyone compared global deforestation with the (global) level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? (Although it probably doesn’t matter, from a historical point of view …)
The Koch bros are due an apology. They own Georgia Pacific and plant massive numbers of trees every year. They will save the planet.
On the other hand, it is getting smaller but the New York Times annual subscription was running 570 pounds of paper. it takes a lot of energy to harvest, process, print and deliver paper. That is enough for the bottom of a lot of bird cages.
@Ralph says “at the end of that wood’s useful life, it is invariably burned”
Well, no, it’s not. Much waste/demo’d wood is landfilled and most landfills today allow for little decompostion. Landfills are “carbon capture facilities”.
Serious “carbon capturing” advocates should call for the landfill of all wood products and an immediate ban on paper recycling. (Please, please realize that trees are grown like any other crop and recylcing paper to “save the trees” makes as much sense as recycling bread crumbs to “save the wheat”.)
And here I finally got my arms around trees as thermometers bits.
Next we will get a paper that trees store water, where will it end.
@Hugh Pepper says:
July 19, 2011 at 4:29 am
The problem Anthony is that there is far more carbon in the atmosphere than can be absorbed by trees, the oceans or the soil. We’ve reached a saturation point, it seems. Additionally, the northern forests are being devastated by worms and beetles which are multiplying in an out-of-control fashion, in the absence of cold weather which would otherwise kill them in the winter months The combination of drought conditions, and dying (dead) forests, contribute to a much higher risk of wild fire devastation, as can be seen in many parts of the world as we speak.
***********************************************************************************************
LOL – Hugh, you really do believe that, don’t you?
Years and years of chanting the mantra and you have lost all capacity for rational thought. If we had reached saturation point with “carbon” in the atmosphere it would not continue to increase at the “alarming” rate so beloved of the AGW believers. If it is at saturation point now, how come it has been many times higher in the past?
Which northern forests are being devastated? Which northern forests are avoiding the extremely cold winters of recent years, and are being devastated by worms and beetles multiplying in an out of control fashion? Drought conditions and dying/dead forests? Come on – which ones?
Stop chanting and come up with some real, irrefutable facts.
There is no-one more ridiculous than a chanting believer….
@Hugh Pepper says:
July 19, 2011 at 4:29 am
The problem Anthony is that there is far more carbon in the atmosphere than can be absorbed by trees, the oceans or the soil. We’ve reached a saturation point, it seems.
===================================================================
Not true. The oceans have a vast capacity to absorb CO_2 and are nowhere near saturated.
Hugh Pepper apparently doesn’t understand what saturation means.
This whole carbon cycle, where it is stored in biomass is a wonderful form of solar energy and recycling. The CO2 is converted to a carbon fuel through photosynthesis by means of solar energy. When the fuel is converted back to CO2 it releases the stored solar energy and the cycle can begin anew. A perfect form of recyclable solar energy. Whats not to like?
In other news, researcher have found that 1+1=2…..