From the “trees aren’t linear instruments and the Liebigs Law department” and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, comes this story that suggests the older trees are, the less linear their tree ring growth might be, which has implications for “paleoclimatology” and Mann’s hockey stick temperature reconstructions from tree rings.
Trees grow faster and store more carbon as they age
Trees put on weight faster and faster as they grow older, according to a new study in the journal Nature. The finding that most trees’ growth accelerates as they age suggests that large, old trees may play an unexpectedly dynamic role in removing carbon from the atmosphere.
Richard Condit, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, devised the analysis to interpret measurements from more than 600,000 trees belonging to 403 species. “Rather than slowing down or ceasing growth and carbon uptake, as we previously assumed, most of the oldest trees in forests around the world actually grow faster, taking up more carbon,” Condit said. “A large tree may put on weight equivalent to an entire small tree in a year.”
“If human growth would accelerate at the same rate, we would weigh half a ton by middle age and well over a ton at retirement,” said Nate Stephenson, lead author and forest ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
Whether accelerated growth of individual trees translates into greater carbon storage by aging forests remains to be seen. Programs like the United Nations REDD+ are based on the idea that forest conservation and reforestation mitigate global warming by reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In 1980, the first large-scale tree plot was established in Panama in an effort to understand why tropical forests were so diverse. More than 250,000 trees with trunk diameters greater than 1 centimeter were identified and measured within a 50-hectare area.
“ForestGEO is now the foremost forest observatory system in the world with 53 plots in 23 countries and more than 80 partner institutions,” said Stuart Davies, ForestGEO director. “We hope that researchers continue to work with our data and our staff as they ask new questions about how forests respond to global change.”
The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, headquartered in Panama City, Panama, is a unit of the Smithsonian Institution. The Institute furthers the understanding of tropical nature and its importance to human welfare, trains students to conduct research in the tropics and promotes conservation by increasing public awareness of the beauty and importance of tropical ecosystems.
Website:
http://www.stri.si.edu/english/research/features/forestgeo.php
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“””””……David L says:
January 15, 2014 at 3:57 pm
stevek on January 15, 2014 at 3:44 pm
Reminds me of interesting problem. If earth was a perfect sphere and a rope was wrapped around the equator one meter above the ground how much longer would rope be compared to length of equator ?
—————-
2pi longer…….””””””
Yeah, well the earth ISN’T a perfect sphere; so now, how much longer will your rope be ??
By the way; nothing is a perfect sphere; such things don’t exist; nor does anything else we talk about in mathematics.
This fact is geometrically obvious. If the tree adds a 1 mm ring, the tree diameter increases by
2 mm. The next year’s ring will add ~6.28 sq mm more growth than the year.
“If human growth would accelerate at the same rate, we would weigh half a ton by middle age and well over a ton at retirement”
I’m working on it.
“If human growth would accelerate at the same rate, we would weigh half a ton by middle age and well over a ton at retirement,” said Nate Stephenson, lead author and forest ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
That should be
““If human growth accelerated at the same rate, we would weigh half a ton by middle age and well over a ton at retirement”
Can we trust someone who cannot handle the grammar of a simple conditional sentence?
I thought the whole “hide the decline” event proved trees weren’t a good proxy. The point was trees showed cooling when it was in fact warming. It proved that claims that rates warming/cooling and values of historical temps were unfounded. We also know that the ice core locations are too few and number, don’t have the resolution to show comparably trends, and that physical and chemical process mean that fluctuations in temp and GHG levels are likely to go unobserved.
[In the future, ALWAYS put a label or description of any video you post. Mod]
Pete in Cumbria – I’m reasonably happy with most of your comment (Jan 15 12:41pm) but I’m not too sure about “[trees] are really just vehicles that transport CO2 and put it into the ground“. The ground under many forests is very poor – witness the very poor yields from cleared Amazon forest areas, not to mention the almost total lack of topsoil in many Australian forests. My take is that a mature forest is carbon neutral – all other things being equal in 10^n years time it will contain exactly the same amount of C – unless it is in a swamp or some other special situation which really does hold onto the C.
DonV (Jan 15 1:16pm) – Although the destruction of old growth forests of itself will release CO2 into the atmosphere, a recent study found that the total global plant mass had increased. IOW, nature had more than compensated for forest destruction (as you later predict). Sorry I’m away from my usual computer and can’t provide a link right now. I would be able to find it later if you wish.
So older trees will have a less dense grain? Meaning that denser wood may come from younger trees? Yep. But only when speaking about trees.
But seriously, I’ve been up close and personal with logging activities. Anyone with or without glasses looking at a block or stump will clearly see dense wood early on with wider rings as the tree ages. Lumber from the core is closely packed. Lumber taken further from the core will have a much wider grain. File this revelation under duh.
Reblogged this on Sherry's Space and commented:
This is very interesting.
Baby trees begin their life under the shadow of poppa and mamma. Or are closely planted in clear cuts by humans (I’ve planted them so I know). So under either natural or tree farm conditions they are crowded in a compact group, all competing for precious resources. Growth is slow under such fierce competition. As they grow and naturally -or otherwise- “thin”, they have more resources available thus grow quicker. Why is this new knowledge?????
Mann should be happy that trees have their own “hockey stick” when it comes to carbon.
Oh, that’s right–Mann does’t play well with others.
Oh well…
Preempted by nature. How fitting!
As a professional forester, permit me to make a few comments on volume growth in trees. There are very many factors that affect tree volume, some of which have been mentioned above, both correctly and incorrectly:
* Tree species does matter. Some species are tolerant of shade (maples, true firs, e.g.) so can grow and thrive in the shade of other trees. With time and no intervention in the stand, species composition will trend more and more to shade tolerant species. More species are intolerant of shade, and grow faster when they are in full sun and don’t have too much competition from their neighbors. Shade tolerance is just one aspect that varies widely between tree species, there are many more. One size does not fit all.
*We assume that volume of a tree approximates volume of a cylinder, we use the formula Dsquared x H (diameter at breast height time height. The shape is really a frustrum of a cone. But, for trees with little taper, the difference isn’t that important.
* The simplest way to think about this is that a 1/4″ growth ring on a tree 10″ in diameter adds much, much more volume to the tree than the same growth ring on a tree 5″ in diameter.
* Height also factors into volume (obviously), but diameter growth is much more important.
* Growth traits in trees typically have low heritabilities. This means that, while genetics are important, environmental factors explain most of the variation in these traits.
*Unless the density of stocking is way high, young trees will have wider growth rings (but much less volume) than older trees. As trees grow and age, they increasingly come into competition with each other, and the width of growth rings usually gets smaller. Again however, given the increasing diameter of older trees, the growth of a smaller growth ring in an older tree still is almost always much more volume of wood than a wider ring on a younger and smaller tree.
* Understand that green wood, on a dry weight basis, is usually 100% or more water. So, the weight of green wood is less important than the actual amount of dry wood.
* Usually, trees grow more when those factors necessary for growth are not limiting. These main factors are sunlight, available soil moisture, nutrient availability, and temperature. In general, most temperate zone trees grow more in full sunlight, on good soils with well distributed precipitation, and warmer conditions. In my experience, cooler years are also characterized by cloudier conditions, which reduces solar input. So, a double whammy reducing growth.
When we were planting (won’t tell ya how many decades ago) it was a long line of young high school kids who would move forward every big step, swing the pick ax, plant a tree, step on it. Take a big step, swing the pick ax, plant a tree, step on it. IE Dense!
“Climate Scientists” “Discover” older trees grow larger! Dumb as a wooden fence post is what I see. The growth of trees and forest has been studied and known for hundreds of years or more!. They don’t need to do new studies, they just need to look up previous work by people that are Real scientists. pg
I’ve seen old growth, second growth, and tree plantation stumps and blocks. The initial rings are big but then get smaller fairly quickly. After that it varies. I have spent years of my life tramping through federal and state forests as well as private stands. Natural re-growth will show clusters of closely packed young-uns. Human re-planting will show evenly spaced closely packed young-uns. But then again I am more than 1/2 a century old so who knows what the practices are these days. Anybody who is using trees as temperature thermometers better know the history of re-planting patterns and practices, both natural and man-made, if they don’t want to be laughed off the page by this little forest elf. And that ain’t from book learnin. It’s from my own two eyes.
Mike Jonas on January 15, 2014 at 6:55 pm
Pete in Cumbria – I’m reasonably happy with most of your comment (Jan 15 12:41pm) but I’m not too sure about “[trees] are really just vehicles that transport CO2 and put it into the ground“. The ground under many forests is very poor – witness the very poor yields from cleared Amazon forest areas, not to mention the almost total lack of topsoil in many Australian forests. My take is that a mature forest is carbon neutral – all other things being equal in 10^n years time it will contain exactly the same amount of C – unless it is in a swamp or some other special situation which really does hold onto the C.
There is a fundamental difference between tropical and temperare forest in carbon cycling. In the tropics you are right, carbon is almost all heeld in the plant biomas, soils are indeed poor. Hovever in temperate forest carbon cycling iis slower and there is more carbon deposition in soil.
Pamela Gray says:
January 15, 2014 at 8:10 pm (and)
Pamela Gray says:
January 15, 2014 at 8:29 pm
Couple of notes, though I do not profess to be a biologist, I am staying near a Holiday Inn Express tonight.
Pine trees will begin growing at 2- 6 inches apart, spouting naturally and energetically ANYWHERE the pollen lands (even house eaves, gutters and flowerpots) until about 6-10 inches tall. After that, only the taller survive, with successive trees being killed off by the tallest until they are about 2-4 feet apart and 8-10 feet tall. (1-1/2 to 2-1/2 inches diameter trunk perhaps.)
They continue weeding out their neighbors naturally until the tops are 35 – 60 feet tall, with only the upper few feet with a “mop” of leaves in a group stand 15-20 apart at the base. At this time, the hardwoods can begin growing in the shade back on the ground, but the pines keep growing, ever more flexible but near enough to each other that the wind does not blow them all down (major storms excepted obviously.) After 75 to 100 years, the hardwoods now begin shading out the pines – which then die and leave a clump of hardwoods standing where only grass used to be. The undergrowth, unless in the rare opening where a hardwood fell down, is almost lifeless to green growth. Ivy and kudzu excepted: That overgrows EVERYTHING and within a few years will kill all that it covers. Even telephone poles and slow cows.
Formula for a tree’s volume needs to be a cone (not a cylinder!) whose base is the diameter right at the ground.
This “lifecycle” of trees needs to include the absence (or presence!) of the dozens of small trees NOT left alive at maturity of an old tree that were “killed” by the overgrowth of the remaining isolated tree that did survive its neighbors. Of course, all of the “missing” trees DID die and decay away back into CO2 BEFORE the few suviors were measured and weighed into the carbon cycle, right? So, where did their “young carbon” – now released as old carbon ? – go in the biologists’ summary of the remaining trees and bushes?
The “weight” and CO2 storage of trees needs to include the roots. These do not magically “go away” in the short term of a wood products life, but may be ripped out and burned, decay away underground, turned into soil/peat/dust/coal/washed downstream as future mud, or washed all the way to the ocean to become another few microns in rgb’s undersea reservoir of mush, mud, and biologic residue on the sea floor. Roots over the long term are probably not all “stored” but the stored CO2->Carbon and sugars does not all recycle as decay.
Where, in all of Mann’s tree-hugging measurements, does HE account for the INCREASED growth of trees and plants BECAUSE of increased CO2 in the 1950 to 2014 timeframe? If HE believes that tree ring size is proportional to temperature, and if HE believes HE has corrected for water, sunlight, fores, changes in fertilizer levels (nitrates and phosphates anyone?) then what is Mann’s specific, correlated, precise accounting for CO2 levels as they rise the past 60 years?
.
No one has metioned root
Dendrochronology (“tree limb + time”) was hijacked by the CAGW crew (now transitioning to be known as the Ship of Fools). Still useful for dating and, knowing the tree species, for paleogeography/ecology.
~~~~~~~~~~
Rud Istvan says:
January 15, 2014 at 1:25 pm “Boise Cascade”
Check the Co.’s history – I think they no longer grow trees.
phlogiston – re “in temperate forest [..] there is more carbon deposition in soil” : interesting. Links?
So, more flawed assumption in Mann’s half baked work. When is his dissertation being re-evaluated for its flaws????
Isn’t this a bit obvious that trees bulk up rapidly with diameter increase? It has been some years, but I think that after 33 inches a tree doubles it,s volume with every added inch of diameter. I should know the math, but I have to admit that I am very rusty in that regard. Although, I was very good at math in my school years.
From the blog: “A large tree may put on weight equivalent to an entire small tree in a year.”
A comment: While I agree with the idea that trees make lousy Paleo-climato-makeitupaswego thermometers, I think statements like this could be made a tad more scientific. Perhaps “large”, “small”, and “may are defined in his work. If so my apologies.
My opinion:
The relationship between mass gain and tree size can be analyzed using the fact that the growth takes place at the periphery, the outer layer. The mass of the growing layer is proportional to circumference and therefore diameter. The rate is LINEAR.
By contrast the total mass of the tree includes the non-growing woody core. So the cross-sectional AREA forms a nearly linear relationship with TOTAL mass including the woody core. The cross-sectional area varies as the SQUARE of the diameter.
M = total Mass and T = time and G = annual increase in mass M
Total M varies as D squared over T years
M = k times Pi times D squared where k is a constant.
delta M by delta T = G = y times 2 times D where y is a constant (by differentiation)
G = z times D where z is a constant
This result suggests that “A large tree may put on weight equivalent to an entire small tree in a year” if the large tree is z times the diameter of the small tree.
A good starting hypothesis would be that the value of z depends on the thicknesses of the growing layer of the large tree and the small tree. I would expect that z might turn out to be a non-linear variable involving the ratio of the diameters of the trees and I would have to redefine this model to take that into account..
Final comment: G = z times D seems to be what one would expect intuitively. So the real question is: Why has it taken so long to discover this. IMHO because (1) climate alarmists found it more conducive to their cause to ignore the possibility that big trees are good carbon sinks. (2) cutting down big trees and replanting is more attractive to commercial interests. (3) environmentalist get grants for planting little trees
So, how does this impact Professor Turkey’s required planting of Kauri trees to offset his carbon-footprint misadventure in Antarctica ?
“””””……Pamela Gray says:
January 15, 2014 at 8:29 pm
I’ve seen old growth, second growth, and tree plantation stumps and blocks. The initial rings are big but then get smaller fairly quickly. After that it varies. I have spent years of my life tramping through federal and state forests as well as private stands. Natural re-growth will show clusters of closely packed young-uns. Human re-planting will show evenly spaced closely packed young-uns. But then again I am more than 1/2 a century old so who knows what the practices are these days. …..””””””
Just a whippersnapper eh !
Last time I went driving around the man made tree farm forests in New Zealand, where Doug Fir is Oregon Pine, they looked like a photoshop forest.
A) They clear cut them, and B) they plant them like an orange orchard, on a carefully spaced map grid, or a Christmas tree farm.
So these little Christmas trees, each grow in a clear space, in clear sunlight, and their heights are within microns of each other.
So they grow like wild fire, in solitude, until one morning, they wake all banging into one another.
At that point, the ground becomes as dark as a black cat in a cellar at midnight, with no sunlight ever reaching the ground.
So now the trees cease adding new branches at the base; there’s no sun to grow leaves etc, so each little Christmas tree (actually quite big), finds itself growing on top of an AT&T tree; aka, a telephone pole, with no branches. So you can look all the way through the whole forest, with all these Christmas trees sitting way up high on poles.
Makes the lumbering job so much more efficient. OPs will grow over 100 ft. in 35 years, in NZ.