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Posted on 08/12/2007 6:32:12 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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.
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.
The treated trees produced about 20 percent more biomass on average, but since water and nutrient availability differed across the plots, averages don't tell the whole story, the researchers noted.
"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."
These differences are key since the weather isn't always cooperative with human needs—if a drought takes hold, trees won't be able to do much in the way of carbon storage.
"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."
Now who didn’t see that one coming?
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New!!: Dr. John Ray's
GREENIE WATCH
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Remember when everyone mocked Reagan for supposedly saying that trees caused pollution?
Only Lord Algore, Son of Sol can save us from “global warming.”
“only the trees that received the most water and nutrients stored enough carbon dioxide to offset the effects of global warming.”
Interesting ... I didn’t know that tree stored CO2 ... I though they separated it, using the Carbon to grow with and releasing the Oxygen.
But they may be mistakenly correct in one aspect -— the increase in atmospheric CO2 is the EFFECT of global warming, not the other way around.
Excerpt from link:
Other suggestions include a ban on cremation (all that CO2 released with fire!)
WTH are we supposed to do then?
Soylent green or what?
This would be funny if so many people weren’t serious about it.
No more leavened bread and no more beer!
I would think that a tree is carbon based, so for it to get larger it must have more carbon. Where does it get that carbon? Out of the air or soil. When the tree dies and either decays or burns it gives up that stored carbon. and the cycle continues.
I haven’t looked it up yet, but I believe it was very early. Maybe 1980
Trees are cool.
exactly ... it stores carbon ... not CO2
... and for these people to think that it would get larger just by spraying it with a little more CO2 and not supplying the other needed ingrediants is pretty foolish, since it could suck all the CO2 it wants out of the existing atmosphere.
Bet this experiment was designed chiefly to suck dollars out of the taxpayers pockets.
I am a strong advocate of algae farms that would be a major win-win as far as this is concerned. MIT scientists have found a few strains of algae that can be converted to biodiesel, also producing some ethanol in the process.
Currently, many industries produce waste CO2 and nitrous oxides, which even under current rules are expensive to dispose of. So instead of wasting them, they should be used to feed algae, turning a major expense into profit, by recycling these waste gases into fuel.
Unlike other crops, the best of which takes at least 60 days to grow, algae grows almost 10 months of the year in about anywhere in the southern half of the US. In sealed tanks with the new “self-cleaning glass”, mountains of algae could be produced in short order, while using up huge amounts of CO2 and nitrous oxides.
After the start up costs, and some expense to filter and re-use the water, it turns into a high profit enterprise, producing a fuel that can be used in existing diesel engines.
You really think all that is worth it? The only use I see out of these “experiments” is possibly in contained biospheres like what would be encountered if trying to colonize space.
Costs are way too high right now. No one has ever recovered from the costs yet.
Paging Al Gore...Al Gore please report to the Reality Desk!
....of course not, everyone knows that !, only socialism can stop global warming
Nothing will stop global warming. Let's just face it, what ever happens will happen. We are merely along for the ride.
On the issue of trees, they cannot be a permanent store for Carbon. Even if they live 100 years, they will die and decay, releasing carbon. With the geological time spans for carbon cycles being many times longer than the life span of a tree, what do you think the effect of the tree is? ZERO.
The net effect is the carbon was removed and then put back into the atmosphere in the life span of one tree. The only thing that would change that is if we cut down all the existing trees, buried them, and then planted new ones to later cut down and bury....... Then the carbon would be sequestered. I am not advocating this and we couldn't even do enough of it to make a difference. Add in the carbon energy "cost" to do the planting, cutting, and burying, and even that strategy would not make sense.
So what is the point? We are merely along for the ride. Let's enjoy life and stop being afraid of it.
No, I was trying to point out that trying to use trees as a carbon sink is at best a break even strategy and at worse a loser.
It helps my oil bill.
So we should massively harvest the rain-forests? But in a way that leaves nutrients?
In some environments, water is the limiting factor; in others, some nutrient; in others, CO2.
Actually, we are much closer to the CO2 threshold than we have been at other times in history. Photosynthesis appears to have developed under concentrations of over 4000ppm, and released Oxygen as a waste-gas.
Can’t fix what ain’t broke!
Hmmm. “history” should be “the past”.
“In some environments, water is the limiting factor; in others, some nutrient; in others, CO2. “
Not sure how CO2 could not be available in whatever amount the plant would like in any natural area - even the “competition” in jungle areas would not seem to be any limiting factor.
...But it’s interesting - got link ?
Studies have shown this to be true in the past, but that could be because a tipping point was reached, where flora were dying at a more rapid rate because it became too hot where they were. A cycle is then created, where it gets so hot that plants die, possibly because of changes in the sun, then the carbon dioxide released makes it even hotter, then more plants die, etc.
The CO2 effect would outlast the warming trend, making it seem that the warming causes the increase in CO2, when in truth each one causes the other.
If we have been adding CO2 to the atmosphere for the past 100 years, we could have artificially started this kind of cyle in what in completely natural conditions would be the middle.
Total crap. The global warming is what the BS models say, plus most of the carbon storage is in the soil, not the plant itself.
A field of corn in full sun in midsummer uses up all the CO2 within reach of the plants in 5 minutes.
Good choice ... I like Dyson
but here’s his next sentance - “If the air were not constantly stirred by convection currents and winds, the corn would stop growing.”
The point being, the air IS constantly stirred, and the corn gets all it wants. I could venture to say that the intake and conversion of the CO2 causes some of the stirring itself.
Remember, free oxygen in the atmosphere is the anomoly. All of that O2 being locked up with carbon as CO2 is the norm. Plants have taken all but the last few parts per million out, and they can't reach the CO2 more than mixes into the lowest levels.
“Remember, free oxygen in the atmosphere is the anomoly. All of that O2 being locked up with carbon as CO2 is the norm.”
Huh ?
“The atmosphere begins at sea level, and its first layer, the troposphere, extends from 8 to 16 km (5 and 10 mi) from Earth’s surface. The air in the troposphere consists of the following proportions of gases: 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, 0.9 percent argon, 0.03 percent carbon dioxide, and the remaining 0.07 percent is a mixture of hydrogen, water, ozone, neon, helium, krypton, xenon, and other trace components.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741500785/Air.html
Just re-read your post ...
“During the summer, plants alone will drive the surface levels up to 500ppm in the late part of the night, and down below 200 during the later part of the afternoon.”
How can you say that NOT using the CO2 in the atmosphere at night is driving the level of CO2 UP ? It’s simply not taking it out ... it’s not like it’s actually giving off CO2 at night.
“Remember, free oxygen in the atmosphere is the anomoly. All of that O2 being locked up with carbon as CO2 is the norm.”
It's one example. Poke around into the difference between C3 and C4 plants. One is more efficient at producing sugars in a plentiful environment, and the other has a sort of CO2 pump that collects CO2 at night for use during the day so it doesn't have to lose a lot of water through stomata, but which also makes it more efficient in low CO2 environments.
Huh ?
I meant the norm where you don't have plants converting the CO2 to O2. Without photosynthesis, our atmosphere would have roughly 210,000ppm CO2, rather than merely 380ppm.
“Remember, free oxygen in the atmosphere is the anomoly. All of that O2 being locked up with carbon as CO2 is the norm.”
Even if you meant all of the Oxygen existing on the planet, I would have guessed most of it is locked up with Hydrogen in water - besides the free water and water vapor, most of your plant and animal life is H2O.
Yes, it is.
Plants respirate, just like animals, but at a lower rate...though there are much more of them. During the summer, CO2 levels rise at night much more sharply than they do during the winter.
I think I have an example...
http://meteo.lcd.lu/today_04.png
Here’s an example of hourly CO@ levels. The particular place has a generally high ambient level, so it only drops to about 360, but as you can see, starting in the evening, it climbs, and then drops at sunrise. The site is in europe, so it uses dd/mm dating system. This site is far enough from roads that you don’t see the rush-hour traffic signal that one commonly sees in CO2 levels located near main roads.
Nitrogen Overload Alert!!!
Well sure, in unnatural conditions I would expect anything -
I didn’t know of plants that can store CO2 at night, but I would suppose that this would be very limited, since it has every intention of using it up during the day and not turning into a little CO2 blimp. My guess it that it uses this directly internally and would have no reason to release any back.
The oxygen released by plants is from the water taken up by the roots, not from the CO2 they take in.
I meant the O2 currently in the atmosphere, without plant life, would all be bound up. Except for extreme trace gases, any oxygen in the atmopsphere would be as part of a CO2 molecule. All of that free oxygen is the result of CO2 being broken down and released by plants - which very efficiently has consumed nearly all of the CO2 available to them.
Get rid of waste from the coal plant and turn it into bio-diesel. And as the article mentioned; you're getting two energy sources for the price of one carbon source. Electric company turns around and sells the BD to local stations.
MIT: Algae system transforms greenhouse emissions into green fuel
So where am I thinking wrong ?
The CO2 levels rise at night, when the air is circulating, fresh CO2 laden air arrives and does not get taken out by the plants, then it drops when the sun rises and the plants go to work.
Isn’t this exactly what you would expect to see ?
You seem to dismiss the “high ambient level” yet wouldn’t that simply be the point where the local plants are devouring all they want/need ?
Yes. It converts it into sugars.
My guess it that it uses this directly internally and would have no reason to release any back.
Not directly. It metabolizes sugars, just as animals do, which releases CO2. Only the chloroplasts consume CO2, and then only in the prescence of appropriate frequencies of light. The whole plant respirates O2. During the day, the consumption of CO2 heavily outstrips the respiration rate. During the night, it's all respiration.
Okay, where is the Pic?. The only on I have is of her topless, and we all know that that doesn,t fly here.
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