Study: Trees Won't Fix Global Warming

Source: LiveScience

Trees Won't Fix Global Warming

Andrea Thompson

LiveScience Staff Writer

The plan to use trees as a way to suck up and store the extra carbon dioxide emitted into Earth's atmosphere to combat global warming isn't such a hot idea, new research indicates.

Scientists at Duke University bathed plots of North Carolina pine trees in extra carbon dioxide every day for 10 years and found that while the trees grew more tissue, only the trees that received the most water and nutrients stored enough carbon dioxide to offset the effects of global warming.

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"If water availability decreases at the same time that carbon dioxide increases, then we might not have a net gain in carbon sequestration," Oren said. Fertilizing forests to spur more carbon dioxide uptake is impractical, Oren added, because of the ramifications to the local environment and water supply.

"In order to actually have an effect on the atmospheric concentration of CO2, the results suggest a future need to fertilize vast areas," Oren said. "And the impact on water quality of fertilizing large areas will be intolerable to society. Water is already a scarce resource." The results of the study, presented yesterday at a national meeting of the Ecological Society of America, also noted that only a few parts of a tree will store carbon for long periods of time.

"Carbon that's in foliage is going to last a lot shorter time than carbon in the wood, because leaves decay quickly," said Duke graduate student and project member Heather McCarthy. "So elevated CO2 could significantly increase the production of foliage, but this would lead to only a very small increase in ecosystem carbon storage."

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Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070812/sc_livescience/treeswontfixglobalwarming

A synthetic analogue to mimic photosynthesis might be a good start...

So much harvesting anyway, right? Planting sounds to me like the healthiest thing to do in the meantime.

Plant drought resistant varieties.

n/t

It's why the soil under a long-established tree canopy is usually very rich in "duff" - the still-undecayed tree remains.

... non native earthworms digest huge amount of duff.

the speed @ which ligin decomp happens also is a function of climate too.

thanx for your post

cause more pollution than cars do. :eyes:

until they are ALL down. Idiots!

no doubt about it...

it's just that "the way out" is gonna take a bit of work...

I see so many trees getting cut down to make room for unneeded houses in my area. Trees do help in more ways than taking in CO2. They keep the suns heat away from the ground..etc.

Another cool item to look up is phytoremediation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoremediation

Dap

botanically, hemp is a member of the most advanced plant family on earth. it uses the sun more efficiently than any plant, and can be grown in any climate or soil condition. in enormous fields it could be grown, with planting/harvesting creating jobs. while growing it absorbs the suns rays, so not as many are reflected. while still growing to 20 feet in one season, it obviously absorbs massive amounts of co2 releasing massive amounts of oxygen. and when it dies it gives us our most precious resource, the strongest, most durable, longest lasting natural soft fiber. anything made from an organic plant could be made from hemp. clothing, paper, biofeul, diapers, anything.

Another good reason to stop using the oceans as sewers...

Polluting the oceans may be the worst thing humans have done to the arth, though there are many contenders for the title.

or whatever!!!

Trees are very unhappy.!!. Whatever.!!.

...can't remember where I'd seen it. Was it in Inconvenient Truth? The DVD had some additional info that the theatre version of the film didn't.

Anyway, it's true.

I think Duke Forest at Duke University did some studies on this too and came to the same conclusion - but I could be remembering incorrectly.

CO2. I remember that after the Iowa farmers cut down all their groves and fence line trees they also found themselves with very dry wells.

when you cut down a rain forest, the rain goes out and falls over the ocean instead of falling where it USED to fall (where say you now want to farm)

I guess we are just going to have to face it that we need to actually ....change how we live! Gulp!

after all, the fossil fuels we are burning represent carbon that has been out of circulation for millions of years. A few years of planting trees isn't going to replicate that.

Yes, we should still continue planting; don't get me wrong. However, we need real energy alternatives, and fast.

If the damn trees won't cooperate and fix this global warming problem then cut them all down!

Who funded it? THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY.

The Department of Energy-funded project, called the Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) experiment, compared four pine forest plots that received daily doses of carbon dioxide 1.5 times current levels of the greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere to four matched plots that didn't receive any extra gas.

In some areas, the growth is maybe five to 10 percent more, and in other areas it's 40 percent more," said FACE project director Ram Oren of Duke University. "So in sites that are poor in nutrients and water we see very little response. In sites that are rich in both, we see a large response."

The title of this article is MISLEADING.

...fast growing versions of which, are beloved by timber companies.

What about other species of trees?

But well worth the time, I think. The trouble is trying to find an agency that will support years, even decades, of research. (Personally I would love to do work on the long-term biogeochemical cycling processes in oak woodlands -- of which there are examples on the West Coast, in Texas, around the Great Lakes, and on the eastern seaboard.)

deciduous (leafy) trees (much of what makes up the "emerald necklace"-the Amazon and other tropical forests) are far more effective than pine at combating climate change. These trees act as lungs for our planet The "slash and burn" method used to clear our planet's lungs for cattle and soybeans causes 30% of all CO2 emissions.


Plant more trees and STOP deforestation. Trees can be harvested in a sustainable manner, and alternatives to wood-like hemp-should be put to use for our paper needs.

But they are a part of the solution. It takes CO2 to build wood. Anyone who claims otherwise needs to take a remedial plant biology class. The day-to-day plant respiration is unimportant. It's the sequestering of CO2 in the wood over long periods of growth that are important.

Also, trees are a vital part of ecosystems and the web of life. I strongly suggest we plant as many as possible, as quickly as possible, in appropriate locations and types of trees, to get them fixing CO2 into their tissues ASAP rather than debating it.

but trees reflect less light/heat back up into the atmosphere than, say, concrete ... you have to look at the whole thermodynamic picture. I really think defoliation is one of the reasons why the effects of global warming seem to be arriving faster than anticipated.

Shrubs and bushes (no pun intended) frequently take up less space than trees, but have some of the same effects.

It's possible to fit them into nooks and crannies that won't support trees. Small ones can even be grown in containers.

Really, anything green is better than concrete or alphalt.

paint all black tops white.

increases reflection instead of heat absorption.

you can't burn oil if there ain't none left.

then we'll start melting down tupperware & digging up plastic bags just to keep our hummers moving.

amounts of CO2.

I agree that landfills will be picked over for just about anything made with hydrocarbons. That will include polyester fabric, lots of carpeting and all the non-recyclable yogurt containers that I've thrown away (with regrets).

but I wouldn't say "soon." I'm thinking 30-40 years or so.

I expect to see much more recycling of all metals, all plastics and synthetic fibers and leftover food (to be made into fertilizer) well before we start pulling our landfills apart. I expect real fines to encourage the practice as well.

Just you wait, kiddo. It'll fly by before you know it!

I may very not be around in 30-40 years, so to me, that is quite a while away.

Or so I tell myself to keep my sanity about all the stuff I'd like to do.

Geez, these people have absolutely no clue as to how an ecosystem works. Carbon that't in the foliage will still be trapped. It takes leaves a few years to decay and release that carbon. By that time, they're generally underground or under layers of other plant material. The CO2 will still remain trapped. After all, isn't this how coal formed:banghead:

In addition, trees store a huge amount of carbon in their wood, year in, year out. And while younger trees might need some help out in their early growth(though most seem to do well on their own), older trees do quite well without extra fertilizer or water thanks to their extensive root system.

Oh, and if you want good, scientific validity, don't do your experiment with actions they fail to replicate nature, and do your experiment on more than one sort of tree:eyes:

Thanks, but I will continue to grow trees and encourage others to do the same.

(greenhouse gas) -- methane. I found this in my research experiments for my graduate degree -- soils that are fertilized don't oxidize as much methane as "natural" ones.

However, in particular situations where you've already got sufficient water and decent soils, I think it does make sense to plant vegetation. (It also has the side-benefit of creating wildlife habitat, which given the number of threats to species these days, is a good thing.) No substitute for cutting emissions at the source (as opposed to just decreasing the net amount via carbon fixation), but every little bit will help.

I think that the DUers who have already weighed in on how they personally will keep planting trees are doing the right thing. I bet that the scientists who did this study would NOT want it used as justification for refusing to do anything to mitigate global warming -- if anything, they are criticizing the attitude of some policymakers, that we can just do a single one-size-fits-all approach and not really think about the consumption side at all.

Would more of a mix of vegetation, including bushes, etc., improve soil fertility and increase moisture absorbtion?

How about planting some native legumes among the trees?

I think Tilman and some other ecologists have demonstrated more efficient resource use with more diversity in the ecosystem. One hopes that this would increase the carbon flux into the soil (and with luck that would help with medium, if not long-term storage).

It would mean doing a lot of educational work to convince people that plants they had been trying to eliminate as "weeds" were actually making a contribution to holding the soil together, fixing nitrogen, moderating surface temperature, etc. -- an example being the "cedar" (actually Ashe juniper) that George W. is always bragging about chopping up, at his place in Texas. So, ecosystem-based management rather than trying to favor one particular species or group. I talked to a landscape ecologist who works in that region, and she told me that the juniper (not a nitrogen-fixer that I know of, but it has other environmental functions) has been unfairly blamed for "stealing water". Not that Bush bothered to do his homework before putting it on his enemy list!

I have read about those who claim that it uses an inordinate amount of water in an area that is somewhat dry.

Pollen analysis (I haven't read the original study but it's been reported elsewhere) shows it was there prior to European settlement.

You might find this book interesting -- written by the Texas landscape ecologist I mentioned earlier. She trained at Ladybird Johnson's wild plant research institute. I had several years' worth of undergraduate resource management students do a parallel search through the literature, on junipers -- and they kept finding that while the species does use water, it's not as bad as some others, and it provides so many useful environmental services that removing it is more problematic than has been assumed (and that this won't necessarily solve water-availability issues). I know there are situations where removal of vegetation has been positive for ecosystems, but the context has to be considered (e.g. in South Africa, where taking out introduced trees has increased streamflow and increased the diversity of native fynbos species).

http://members.toast.net/juniper/Ashe%20juniper.html

I'll check that book out.

Isn't there some sort of invasive species sucking great amounts of water and decreasing plant diversity on the Colorado? I have the feeling that it's called some sort of olive.

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