From Yale University pick which one is the true message of this press release:
1. The title of the press release: US rivers and streams saturated with carbon.
2. The pointless statistic: Rivers and streams in the United States are releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to fuel 3.4 million car trips to the moon.
3. The title of the paper: Significant Efflux of Carbon Dioxide from Streams and Rivers in the United States.
4. The caveat: The researchers note in the paper that currently it is impossible to determine exactly how to include this flux in regional carbon budgets, because the influence of human activity on the release of CO2 into streams and rivers is still unknown.
Who writes these things?
US rivers and streams saturated with carbon
New Haven, Conn.— Rivers and streams in the United States are releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to fuel 3.4 million car trips to the moon, according to Yale researchers in Nature Geoscience. Their findings could change the way scientists model the movement of carbon between land, water and the atmosphere.
“These rivers breathe a lot of carbon,” said David Butman, a doctoral student and co-author of a study with Pete Raymond, professor of ecosystem ecology, both at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “They are a source of CO2, just like we breathe CO2 and like smokestacks emit CO2, and this has never been systematically estimated from a region as large as the United States.”
The researchers assert that a significant amount of carbon contained in land, which first is absorbed by plants and forests through the air, is leaking into streams and rivers and then released into the atmosphere before reaching coastal waterways.
“What we are able to show is that there is a source of atmospheric CO2 from streams and rivers, and that it is significant enough for terrestrial modelers to take note of it,” said Butman.
They analyzed samples taken by the United States Geological Survey from over 4,000 rivers and streams throughout the United States, and incorporated highly detailed geospatial data to model the flux of carbon dioxide from water. This release of carbon, said Butman, is the same as a car burning 40 billion gallons of gasoline.
The paper, titled “Significant Efflux of Carbon Dioxide from Streams and Rivers in the United States,” also indicates that as the climate heats up there will be more rain and snow, and that an increase in precipitation will result in even more terrestrial carbon flowing into rivers and streams and being released into the atmosphere.
“This would mean that any estimate between carbon uptake in the biosphere and carbon being released through respiration in the biosphere will be even less likely to balance and must include the carbon in streams and rivers,” he said.
The researchers note in the paper that currently it is impossible to determine exactly how to include this flux in regional carbon budgets, because the influence of human activity on the release of CO2 into streams and rivers is still unknown.
The research was funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the United States Geological Survey and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
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During world war 2 there was a comedian (whose name escapes me just for the moment) on radio whose monologue invariably began, “The day war broke out, my Missus said to me, ‘well what are you going to do about it?’ I said ‘do about it’ what the Dickens do you expect me to do about it?
Come on you lot in the U.S., what are you going to do about it?
Can we use this – isn’t it clear evidence that the AGW carbon side models are wrong, and that the human induced “carbon” content is even less significant?
I think you meant to post this on one of the AGW doomsday blogs, didn’t you?
A carbon budget is when you use up you’re ‘fair share’ of resources and have to report to the human recycling center to see what vital nutrients can be harvested from your body.
~More Soylent Green!
Even worse, the rivers and streams are all full of hydrogen and oxygen. Enough to fuel millions of cars.
I think we need to do a sustainability study on these so-called “rivers and streams”. If it turns out they can’t meet acceptable guidelines, we’ll have to have them stopped up, obviously.
(& what the heck are they “riv[v]ing” anyway? Stream is already a verb, so that’s cool, yeah?)
After having gone through the recent 2010 greenhouse gas filing for Local Distribution Companies (LDCs) – natural gas suppliers, I’m hoping the US EPA will allow LDCs to bubble discharges from their pipeline blowdowns directly into nearby waterways. Given that an anthro-maligned carbon budget for said waterways has not been determined or benchmarked appropriately, what are a few tons more of naturally occurring carbon…? Also, this small allowance would compensate the pain and suffering of the many businesses forced to use the US EPA’s nifty electronic Greenhouse Gas Reporting Tool (e-GGRT) – http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ghgrulemaking.html .
ShrNfr says:
October 18, 2011 at 8:31 am
Even worse, the rivers and streams are all full of hydrogen and oxygen. Enough to fuel millions of cars.
Yes, and if we remove it, we can stop catastrophic floods. It’s a win win.
That’s so dumb – there are no gas stations between here and the moon.
They just fantasize we won’t take notice that net primary production keeps going UP. Every year you can see the NH hungrily sucking the CO2 right out of the atmosphere during the NH summer. Look at the negative slope of the curve here:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_trend_mlo.png
Imagine if you took away all of the CO2 sources like these rivers, termites, soil microbes, the ocean, humans, etc. – consider how quickly CO2 would be completely sucked away? In only a few short years there would be insufficient CO2 for plants to survive (under 150ppm?) = TRUE DEATH OF THE PLANET.
I. E. Pete Raymond, THANK GOD we have an ample and continuous supply of CO2 from multiple sources or we’d all be dead.
“also indicates that as the climate heats up there will be more rain and snow, and that an increase in precipitation will result in even more terrestrial carbon flowing into rivers and streams”
…and the forests will grow more robustly and suck up all this carbon (remember the recent post on the Wisconsin forest plot greater-than-we-thought-growth when a tent of high CO2 over the plot was maintained over 10 years .
“Ric Werme says:
October 18, 2011 at 5:34 am
Gas mileage going uphill really sucks and should be accounted for in their calculations. Note that unlike JFK, they seem to have ignored the return trip.”
The return trip is mostly “downhill”. So no fuel is required past 43,495 miles from the moon.
“At a point 43,495 miles from the Moon, lunar gravity exerted a force equal
to the gravity of the Earth, then some 200,000 miles distant.” – Wernher von Braun (Time Magazine, July 25, 1969.)
Since they are talking about the release of CO2, no one is going to the Moon on this. CO2 is NOT a fuel, fools!
Let’s see, Plants suck CO2 from the air, incorporate the carbon into organic chemicals, the chemicals enter the soil and wash into the streams, and then organisms metabolize the organics and release the carbon as CO2. Gee, let’s call this the CARBON CYCLE! What a great idea, or do they ALREADY TEACH THIS IN GRADE SCHOOL?
How do these scientists get to keep their jobs?
Ken Harvey says:
October 18, 2011 at 7:59 am
‘During world war 2 there was a comedian (whose name escapes me just for the moment) on radio whose monologue invariably began, “The day war broke out, my Missus said to me, ‘well what are you going to do about it?’ I said ‘do about it’ what the Dickens do you expect me to do about it?’
His name was Sandy Powell
And lets not forget the natural processes of streams and rivers releasing tonns of methane into the atmospher.
As a fresh water ecologist, I damn near fell out of my chair when I read this. I love how they apply lefty spin to well understood processes and claim its a new discovery. Just another mechinism to remind the public that man is evil.
BTW, warmer water streams produce more CO2 because of the increased rate of kariote metabolism. The soda fizz effect that is always discounted is a straw man.
oh my heavens.
I suspect this carbonated water is even now dissolving the limestone beneath our feet.
Creating huge voids in the earth, something never before seen.
Seems like a lot of folks here are drinking heavily from the scarcasim / cynical fountain today. A lot of grumpy farts. Almost sounding a bit like the elitist asses we so dislike.
Yes, it is a poorly written press release. But rather than showing how superior we all are, why not look at what this might actually tell us? (Granted, it might not tell us anything.)
From a 2004 Seattle Times article I got a figure of 375 million gallons of gas per day consumed in the US. My eyesight is not what it once was so all the zeros on the little screen calulator start running together, but I got 106 days worth of consumption out of 40 billion gallons. So what this release tells me is that natural CO2 releases into the athmosphere “just” from rivers and lakes. In other words, it could very well mean that models predicting the impact of anthropogenic CO2 which do not take into account significant natural sources are flawed.
I was distracted and just noticed I failed to complete a sentence. I meant to say that CO2 releases into the athmosphere “just” from US rivers and lakes may be equal to 1/3 of the total produced in the US by vehicles.
“US rivers and streams saturated with carbon.”
Those of us not blessed with a Yale “education” learn to call those fish, when we were 2 years old or so.
OMG! – a carbon … life-form!
There’s a Halloween joke in here somewhere, maybe Josh can dig it up?
“”””” New Haven, Conn.— Rivers and streams in the United States are releasing enough carbon into the atmosphere to fuel 3.4 million car trips to the moon, according to Yale researchers in Nature Geoscience. Their findings could change the way scientists model the movement of carbon between land, water and the atmosphere. “””””
And evidently the way we drive. I’m ready to take one of those driving trips to the moon in my car. So how long does it take to get my engine modified to run on atmospheric carbon. How neat is that, to be able to get both the working fluid (air) and the fuel (carbon) out of the atmosphere at the same time.
I don’t quite understand the part of the trip, where your car leaves the ground, nor the part where your fuel intake isn’t in the atmosphere any longer; but then I’m new at this car trip to the moon thing.
Looks like I added one zero too many. 40 billion gallons equals almost 3 years worth of US gasoline consumption.
So if I understand it correctly, in the US alone the amount of natural CO2 (or carbon, the press release isn’t clear as to the form) produced by rivers and lakes exceeds that from auto & truck transportation by a factor of three. If we start looking at the rest of the world’s freshwater bodies – places considerably less wedded to the automobile, the ratio could easily be greater than 3 to 1.
Carbon limiting measures start to sound like lose weight fast promotions – the kind where you get 20% or more weight reduction – by the simple expedient of cutting off an arm or leg.
Exactly, what is the solubility of carbon in river water?
Anyone?
I hope he can tell the difference between CaCo3 (X Cation+ Cox), and Co2 Carbon that is being carried by streams into the oceans. And then again he may not want to.
I think the suggestion is that the amount of CO2 being released by rivers and streams is much the same as the amount that would be released by burning the quantity of fossil fuels required to power 3.4 million motor vehicle trips to the moon.
So, if that rate of release from rivers and streams is natural (due to reduced CO2 absorption capacity as rainfall warms en route from sky to oceans) then it follows that those rivers and streams are as evil as human beings.