Posted on 08/13/2012 1:16:41 PM PDT by lbryce
Three years ago, a researcher collecting tree core samples in Connecticut was startled to see one of the trees begin to hiss and spit. Even more surprising, he found that the leaking gas could be set on fire.
It’s been known since around the 1970’s that a relatively rare bacterial infection in trees responsible for the damaging rot known as wet wood can cause trees to emit methane, a greenhouse gas with 20 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. Trees in wetland soils can also act as straws, sipping methane from soggy, oxygen-poor soil.
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies A flame fueled by methane shoots out of an oak tree being cored in Yale Myers Forest in Connecticut. But scientists from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies believe that trees in upland forests infected with an almost ubiquitous fungus may also be a significant source of the potent greenhouse gas. Their findings appeared this week in Geophysical Review Letters.
The researchers found average concentrations of 15,000 parts per million inside trees in the Yale Myers forest in northeastern Connecticut, which is managed by the university’s forestry school. Ambient air concentrations of methane are usually less than two parts per million.
All that methane comes from microorganisms known as methanogens — no strangers to the guts of cows — which thrive in the oxygen-depleted environment created by fungal decay in the trees and release methane as a byproduct of their metabolism.
This methane translates to a warming potential equivalent to about 18 percent of the carbon being sequestered by these forests.
Kristofer Covey, a doctoral candidate at Yale and the lead author on the paper, emphasized that the research does not suggest in any way that such forests are an environmental negative.
(Excerpt) Read more at green.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Oh the horror. And, I thought trees were our friends.
Now, I guess, they’re on the EPA’s Death List.
your not suggesting that a tree fart is a tree fart, are you?
you’re not your...jeesh.
Hmm, envision hundreds no thousands of hoses connected to the trees similar to tapping Maple trees for syrup and all those hoses connected to a burner for a boiler and the steam used to make electricity.
Tree far#$ for energy! Nature’s, natural gas.
Watch out if you hug a tree, it might break wind in your general direction.
And the media laughed.
No one can hear you fart, in space.
Ronald Reagan was right. Between CO2, CH4 and oxides of nitrogen, the damn trees are soon going to have the temperature on earth roughly equal to that of a pizza oven. We need to cut every single on of them down immediately.
Kristofer Covey, a doctoral candidate at Yale and the lead author on the paper, emphasized that the research does not suggest in any way that such forests are an environmental negative.
Ronald Reagan was right. Between CO2, CH4 and oxides of nitrogen, the damn trees are soon going to have the temperature on earth roughly equal to that of a pizza oven. We need to cut every single one of them down immediately.
Damn, now we’ve gotta cut down all the trees....then what will the libs hug?
Tree farts cause global warming!!!
"The Flatulent Elm of West Ruislip!"
(sure glad I was between the soda & the cigarette!) This is sooo priceless!
Thank you for making my day!
Does anyone remember when Ronaldus Magnus made the statement that some trees are themselves polluters, and the catcalls and razzberries he received from the geen nut nature worshippers and the dim bulbs in the media? And now comes this report. Whattayaknow?!
The great new philosophical conundrum of our day is;
if a tree farts in the forest and no one hears it fart, can you still actually smell it?
The great new philosophical conundrum of our day is;
if a tree farts in the forest and no one hears it fart, can you still actually smell it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.