The importance of forests and groves to the environment is well known and recognized, when today due to global warming forests are given great importance because of their ability to absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (hereafter carbon)
Until today it was accepted that young trees are much better "absorbers" than mature trees, an assumption that was based on the need for young trees to grow and develop additional branches, where one of the "building blocks" is carbon. Until now it was accepted that old forests do not absorb carbon, moreover old trees that wither and fall release carbon and cause a negative balance. The growth of new trees (in places where old trees have fallen) causes carbon absorption and thus balances the balance, that is, groves and mature forests were considered to have a neutral carbon cycle: equal absorption and emission, according to this model was the relationship to the importance of the forests in the climate models.
In the last decade, there were "murmurs" of disagreement with this assumption, "murmurs" that got louder and led to projects and studies in which it became clear that even forests with old trees absorb and store carbon mainly due to continued growth, the addition of young trees and a decrease in the rate of "breathing" of the old trees.
Since 1990, detailed data has been collected on the "movement" of carbon in the entire world, the data has been distributed among the members of "Fluxnet" FLUXNET, a global network of observatories where the changing values of carbon and water vapor between the environment and the atmosphere are measured. A researcher named Sebastiaan Luyssaer - from the University of Antwerp (Belgium), used the data collected from observatories in northern and temperate regions where trees 15-800 years old grow, their conclusions are published in Nature:
- Old forests absorb carbon
- Forests in northern and temperate regions make up about 15% of the world's forests, absorbing about 1.3 gigatons of carbon per year, an amount equal to 10% of global absorption, so far this amount has been attributed to other factors.
In response to the data, Susan Yostin, a plant ecologist from the University of California, says: "To know the age of a tree, you count its rings, rings that symbolize the transformation of carbon from the atmosphere into living tissue. In a given year, the death of a tree may release carbon, but over time, every growth means carbon absorption." If a tree reaches equilibrium/neutrality at the age of 400, how is it possible that there are thousand-year-old trees? Because upon reaching neutrality, the tree must die." So much for Justin's words.
To get a clear and clear picture, studies and tests are needed, but: it turns out that mature forests continue to absorb carbon to a greater extent than was customary, a fact that makes mature forests an important factor in the removal of carbon from the atmosphere, therefore they must be taken into account in any climate model. If until today there has been a trend of: wherever trees are uprooted or cut, trees must be planted in their place, then the conclusions of the above study show that it is more important and more correct to preserve existing forests even when these are not in protected areas or reserves, since planting in exchange for displacement is the default choice And not in the right way, unless we wait until the planted trees reach the size of the mature trees, which lasts about 200 years?
We recently heard that contractors who uproot trees will undertake to plant others in their place... in many countries in the world such an undertaking is accepted and fulfilled, and I suggest: for every tree that is uprooted for some purpose, the uprooter will be obliged to plant ten trees.
9 תגובות
How sad that what remains of this Jewish people are only a few ancient trees and all the rest are perhaps educated
Even already in doubt, empty empty empty empty - hollow arrays.
Requiem for my true-rooted self
Hugin: Once the ember guard for all of you, and also for you
Today in doubt. In doubt.
The name of the author of the article is Sebastiaan Luyssaert
Nature 455, 213-215 11 September 2008
Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks
pleasantness,
I think that the process of burying wood, petrification and creating coal deposits is a process that only occurs under very special and rare conditions. For the most part, you can say that a dead tree will decay. There are many animals that would enjoy eating it in the forest (termites and various microorganisms).
There is currently no link to the Nature article in this article. Please fix it
Ami Bachar
Old trees that wither and fall release carbon and cause a negative balance?
After all, coal is left over from plants and trees that have burned, that is, the trees absorb the carbon during their lifetime - but do not blacken most of it when they die, and in the process of thousands/millions of years it turns into coal.
Strange that this was not addressed in the article...
incidentally,
Plastic, this polluting material, is an excellent sink for carbon. It hardly decomposes and holds carbon for thousands of years - longer than most trees. The problem is, of course, in its creation process and the piles of plastic garbage that harms the environment. But if they could produce non-polluting and usable plastic materials for many years (let's say building blocks from compressed and concentrated plastic) then we would have a place to store inorganic carbon and remove it temporarily from the atmosphere for healing.
If we take a tree whose life time is 25 years and its discharge time for another 25 years, we cut down the same tree when it reaches its peak (let's say after 15 years) and make a book from it that lasts on the shelf for 100 years or more - then we have optimized the process of removing inorganic carbon from the atmosphere. In these hundred years, we will plant and cut down 6-7 cycles of new trees and provide a carbon sink in the product that we produce anyway.
But as mentioned, again, the system is closed. Take the day off tomorrow. There is no way to escape it.
The word "breathing" should not be in commas. This is breathing by definition.
I haven't read the original article yet, but I will later today. I'm skeptical. Even without reading anything, I can say in advance that our system is closed and there is no possibility of a one-way process in which more and more material accumulates again and again. Therefore, any material that is fixed will be dismantled after the death of the tree. If it is after 10 years or if after ten thousand years. In the end, the tree will be dismantled and everything in it will return to the atmosphere. The question asked is what is the net fixation efficiency of a young tree against a mature tree. If the growth rate (biomass) is greater in a young tree than in an adult - then we have the final answer. You should plant young trees, which will grow at the maximum rate and they should be cut down as soon as this rate starts to decrease and new trees should be put in their place. But this is not a solution either because of course the trees we cut down will soon turn back into inorganic carbon and return to the atmosphere.
If it was possible to bury this tree as it was so that it does not return to the atmosphere in the next million years - then there is something to talk about. We need some kind of cheap elevator to the moon and there to house a lot of logs.
Greetings friends,
Ami Bachar
I suggest that the state offer tree planting to companies as a tax break!
And additionally oblige every citizen to plant 10 trees a year in exchange for some kind of monthly reduction.
The secret of the trees of life dentally=altruism=the equivalent of evolution which contributes >and rebalancing conservation >slowing weighted retreat<<<and recycling the universe and nature.. alternatively.