Free Republic

Organisms living on tree roots do lion’s share of sequestering carbon Sequestration may be questionable fiscal policy, but it means good news in the context of carbon cycles. Vast underground networks of fungi may sequester heaps of carbon in boreal forest soil, a study suggests. By holding onto the element, the fungi do the environment a favor by preventing carbon dioxide from escaping into the atmosphere and warming the planet. --snip-- But scientists have not understood where exactly trees put their carbon. The issue becomes important when researchers build computer simulations that track carbon cycling. “People talk about how plants...

Hyperia | Credit WikimediaDespite the fuss about CO2 emissions, on a global scale no one is quite sure where a lot of it ends up. Those mystery “sinks” draw in a large proportion of CO2. Here’s a big sink that just got twice as big.Science Daily  Mar. 17, 2013 — Models of carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans need to be revised, according to new work by UC Irvine and other scientists published online Sunday in Nature Geoscience. Trillions of plankton near the surface of warm waters are far more carbon-rich than has long been thought, they found. Global...

Enlarge ImageThe good girth. Researchers measure the continuing growth--and carbon storage--of rainforest trees. Credit: Simon Lewis Some good news for those worried about climate change: The trees in African rainforests are gobbling up ever more carbon dioxide and thereby mitigating the buildup of the greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere. The finding underscores the importance of protecting the rainforests, say the authors. Trees take in CO2 as they grow, and when they die, their decay releases it back into the air. In theory, these fluxes are balanced in a mature forest, so the trees are neither a net sink--as the...