Amazon Forest May Be Adding To Greenhouse Gases (Cut it Down)

U.N. Wire ^ | 2 December 2003 | U.N. Wire

[Mike Darancette]

Parts of the Brazilian Amazon forest might be emitting more carbon dioxide than is absorbed, Brazilian and U.S. scientists said in a study published Friday in the magazine Science, adding that previous studies on the issue probably overstated the amount of the gas absorbed by the forest.

During a three-year inquiry, researchers from Universidade de Sao Paulo, the National Institute of Space Research and Harvard University measured levels of emission and absorption of the gas in the National Forest of Tapajos, in Para, nothern Brazil.

The scientists found that carbon dioxide emissions actually increased during rainy seasons, when decomposing foliage, set off by a high degree of humidity, released their carbon-rich emissions into the air. Scientists had previously believed that emissions only increased during dry seasons (Reinaldo Jose Lopes, Folha de Sao Paulo, Nov. 28, U.N. Wire translation).

One of the main proposals of the Kyoto Protocol, which targets a decrease of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, is to slow deforestation and increase incentives for planting new forests. According to BBC Brasil, the result of the latest study supports previous statements from some environmentalists that politicians developed the protocol based on the now dubious role forests play in cutting gas emissions (BBC Brasil, Nov. 28, U.N. Wire translation).

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[afz400]

Why say cut the rainforests down when you obviously believe there is no greenhouse effect in the first place? Kind of hypocritical I'd say.

[Ramius]

Of course there's a greenhouse effect. That's why people build greenhouses.

Even the larger picture of so-called "global climate change" is certainly true. Global climate does change from month to month, year to year, decade to decade and epoch to epoch. But to say that mankind has maliciously caused climate change is insipidly naive.

There is one thing that global climate has always done: change. The ONE THING it is NEVER done in the span of knowable history is: stay the same. Never once.

So yes... global warming is happening. So is global cooling, depending on where you are. Seems that its been happening for a few thousand years now.

[Jackson Brown]

Parts of the Brazilian Amazon forest might be emitting more carbon dioxide than is absorbed, Brazilian and U.S. scientists said in a study published Friday in the magazine Science, adding that previous studies on the issue probably overstated the amount of the gas absorbed by the forest.

I don't know why this is news? Several years ago, the whole issue of old growth forests and the HUGE amount of CO2 (net) they give off (due to rotting stuff on the forest floor and -- (with the Amazon, especially) -- the comparatively small amount of CO2 they "breathed in" Vs. new growth forests.

[Jeff Chandler]

I had to laugh at Robert Kennedy Jr. on NPR saying that hydrogen cars don't emit greenhouse gases, because the byproduct is...water! Earth to Little Bobby....

[Intolerant in NJ]

During a three-year inquiry, researchers from Universidade de Sao Paulo, the National Institute of Space Research and Harvard University...ironic, since it was all those Harvard-type intellectuals who laughed at Ronald Reagan when he suggested that trees helped cause pollution.......

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[MosesKnows]

Parts of the Brazilian Amazon forest might be emitting more carbon dioxide than is absorbed

When did the jungles in Brazil become forest?

[ancient_geezer]

The scientists found that carbon dioxide emissions actually increased during rainy seasons, when decomposing foliage, set off by a high degree of humidity, released their carbon-rich emissions into the air.

Ahhh! the problem of "Old Growth", decaying forests. Don't harvest guess what, the forest stagnates instead of growing and locking away CO2 as a carbon sink.

The factor that is generally ignored by the Global Waming folks; the level of greenhouse gas emissions increase with temperature induced by changes in solar activity.

From the geological record, (e.g. icecores, ocean sediments, growth in coral beds etc.) it is apparant that changes in CO2 concentrations trail changes in temperature by at least 200-300 years. CO2 concentration from natural sources increase as a consequence of increasing solar activity.

Consider,

The current upward warming trend in temperature is merely a return a somewhat colder period known as the Little Ice Age, returning towards much warmer norm for this interglacial period.

 

As Figure 1 shows (see Figure 4, Access to Energy 25-3, p 2 for this and related references), the Earth's warming trend of during the past 250 years correlates very closely with solar activity. It does not, as we have shown previously, correlate with human activity.

The rise in temperature over the last 200+ years is due to change in Solar Activity, driving temperature, to which the earth's biosphere and oceans are responding with more CO2 & Methane emissions.

The correlation to solar activity is very strong with more than 70% of the changes in surface temperature attributable to change in solar activity.

[ancient_geezer]

Why say cut the rainforests down

Don't harvest, guess what, the forest stagnates instead of growing and locking away CO2 as a carbon sink.

"New" growth, whether in replacing harvest or in increasing forest coverage, locks away carbon through increased photosynthysis. Harvesting & utilization of the carbon products (e.g. lumber) ideally locks up the carbon in useful products, or at the least recycles carbon back to more "New" growth. Stagnate "Old Growth" forests merely decay faster than they lock away carbon.

Old Growth, just stagnates and creates decay products faster than it locks away carbon.

Clear and allow regrowth, creates a more efficient carbon sink. If removing CO2 from the atmosphere is really a worthy goal (a debatable issue in itself) then harvesting forests promoting new growth is a better utilization of resources than watching forests and underbrush decay and burn which has been the apparent policy of the global environmentalists.

Kind of hypocritical I'd say.

Hypocrisy in my view is deliberately watching forests decay & burn by preventing havest and promote new growth.

[Mike Darancette]

The correlation to solar activity is very strong with more than 70% of the changes in surface temperature attributable to change in solar activity.

Thanks