Tuesday, December 13, 2005

AGING AMAZON FOREST CAUSING INCREASE IN GREENHOUSE GASES?

UC-IRVINE (via AMERICAN THINKER):
Trees in the Amazon tropical forests are old. Really old, in fact, which comes as a surprise to a team of American and Brazilian researchers studying tree growth in the world’s largest tropical region.

Using radiocarbon dating methods, the team, which includes UC Irvine’s Susan Trumbore, found that up to half of all trees greater than 10 centimeters in diameter are more than 300 years old. Some of the trees, Trumbore said, are as much as 750 to 1,000 years old. Study results appear in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Because their trees are old and slow-growing, the Amazon forests, which contain about a third of all carbon found in land vegetation, have less capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon than previous studies have predicted. Although some of the largest trees also grow the fastest and can take up carbon quickly, the vast majority of the Amazon trees grow slowly.

“In the Central Amazon, where we found the slowest growing trees, the rates of carbon uptake are roughly half what is predicted by current global carbon cycle models,” Trumbore said. “As a result, those models – which are used by scientists to understand how carbon flows through the Earth system – may be overestimating the forests’ capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”
If this is true, then as the Amazon forest has been allowed to AGE, it has become less efficient at absorbing atmospheric CO2 - at CO2 uptake, and this means more CO2 stays in the atmosphere every year as a result. The increase of atmosphreric CO2 over the last 100 years might be a result of this - the aging of the Amazon - and NOT INDUSTRIALIZATION OR ANYTHING "MAN-MADE."

HERE'S AN IDEA: If we CUT DOWN MORE TREES WITHIN THE AMAZON - AND REPLANTED THESE AREAS WITH YOUNG TREES - (like EVERY good forestry corporation routinely does everywhere) - then we would actually BE REDUCING GREENHOUSES GASES. Here's our slogan:

"Save the Atmosphere! Cut Down the Amazon!"

Somehow, I don't think Sting, or any other member of the chic glitterati or anyone on the Left or in the Green Movement will get behind this BRILLIANT idea. It's too pro-growth. PUN INTENDED!

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:16 PM

    Sigh, you are an idiot.

    This article says nothing about producing greehouse gasses. It mearly states the Amazon doesn't absorb them as much as other places do, cutting down the rainforest would increase global warming significantly.

    READ, and analyze before making idiotic comments like this.

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  2. you are an idiot: if the amazon is mostly OLD trees which absord less CO2 nw then 200yrears ago,

    and if younger trees woiuld absorb more

    then if we cut fown the old trees

    and replaced them with new trees

    we wouo\ld reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere MORE than if we left the old trees up.

    THIS IS INCONTROVERTIBLE.

    also: if the amazon is oldeer now than 100 years ago - which is also INCONTROVERTIBLE -
    them it is absorbing less CO2 then 100 years ago,
    and this DROP OIFF might be the TRUE CAUSE of increased atmospheric CO2 --- the less that trees or other plant life) takes up, the more stays in the atnmosphere.

    HOWEVER, GAIA takes care of that, too.

    IF the earth's climate is warming, and if the glciers melt, thn there will be more algae in the ocenas and more forest on land - like antarctica --- which was once GREEN --- and Greenland ---- which was once also green.

    these new forests and algae blooms will take up CO@ and resuce greenhouse gases and reduce their ability to warm the earth.

    you see: the earth - GAIA - is self-regulating. GAIA can achieve homestasis without us.

    ALSO NOTE THIS - you idiot: the earler wearming periods - when antarctica and greenland were green - has NOTHING to do with humanity or SUV's - these earlier periods of warmth were NATURAL.

    so MIGHT the current warming trend.

    so fuck off.

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  3. Anonymous1:48 PM

    Wow, I think people are starting to get to you relipundit, I go away for a little while and you're already telling people to fuck off?

    Oh, and to expand on Anonymous' point, If you look at current C02 ratios, you notice it's impossible to blame this on the Amazon's absorbing less co2. While yes it is absorbing less co2, it's not a change large enough or dramatic enough to cause the increace in global temperatures we're seeing today, but if you look at the fosile Fules being burned by Major industrialized nations such as Europe, The United States, China and india, etc... you do realize that There is a signicant change in atmospheric co2.

    now, as to your statment about Antarctica and Greenland. If theeese places melt I would be deeply concerned because all that cold water will certianly disrupt oceanic currents, and thats just not somthing I want to think about.

    as to earlier warming periods, those were caused by natural events, yes, but those were during period of great geological change, such as the spliting of Pangea, or the formation of modern continents or massive volcanic eruptions, etc...

    I don't know about you but I havn't seen much continental shifting latly.... Or massive volcanic erutions.... and if you claim Mt. St. Helens alone is going to cause this rise in co2, then you should be hit.

    Your frindly internet SPARTAN

    ReplyDelete