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Soil Carbon and Reforestation

Started by Ron Scott, March 19, 2019, 02:33:07 PM

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Ron Scott


RE:  SOIL CARBON & REFORESTATION

https://naturechange.org/2019/03/07/carbon-capture-in-forest-soils/


            In this short video, forest ecology researcher Dr. Luke Nave (University of Michigan Biological Station) describes recently completed research to quantify the amount of carbon captured from the atmosphere by areas of reforestation throughout the United States. In referring to reforesting land, Nave says that includes areas that once were cultivated and areas that experience forms of deforestation such as fire.


            Using well-documented research data and direct measurements, Nave and his colleagues focused only on those areas that are being reforested. They concluded that about 1 or 2 billion metric tons of carbon would  be captured and sequestered in the soils of just these reforesting areas over the next century. In other words, about 10% to 20% of all carbon captured by forests in the Unites States is in the soils of these reforesting areas.

            Therefore, the reforestation currently underway, Nave says, is critically important to the atmospheric carbon budget. Those efforts should continue. But with just a little more reforestation, says Nave, there could be a much greater amount of carbon captured and sequestered in these areas. Such efforts could be very significant and a welcome contribution to helping to off-set carbon dioxide discharges now and in the future.

 
~Ron

Don P

I think we use the term "sequestered" a little bit loosely in these discussions. The construction community says that when I build with wood I am sequestering carbon. A house is generally releasing that carbon back into the environment within a century. In this video he mentions that although the roots do contain carbon, 1 or 2 billion tons of it in these reforested areas, only a fraction of that remains within the soil. Of that fraction I wonder how much will still be there in say 600 million years. That is the crux of what I wonder when people say we are sequestering carbon. Is that carbon now fixed in the sense that we are offsetting the truly sequestered carbon that we are burning, I think not. Although these are certainly good things and should be done, I believe we are intentionally fooling ourselves if we believe this is anything close to a direct tradeoff. The carbon we are consuming is recalcitrant, stored in the deep loop of time, the carbon we are offsetting it with is labile, a shallow constantly recycled time loop.

dustyjay

Quote from: Don P on March 19, 2019, 09:20:51 PMThe carbon we are consuming is recalcitrant, stored in the deep loop of time, the carbon we are offsetting it with is labile, a shallow constantly recycled time loop.
8) Agreed. Very well said.
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Woodpecker52

Would someone discuss the amount of water vapor put in the atmosphere by pine vs hardwoods.  The effects of deforestation on the water cycle of an area. The effects of loss of water vapor in atmosphere and its effects on global warming.  The effects of concrete, black asphalt pavement and removal of trees in urban spaces and the effects on global warming. The effects of population on global warming.  The effects of the earths tilt, amount of solar radiation, sun spots etc. on global warming.  The effects of high altitude pollution from space craft launches, airliner and military and private jets on global warming.  The effects of all animal farts especially humans on global warming.  The effects of all respiration of all living things on earth on global warming.  And last but not least why anyone would want to live in a tin can on MARS! 
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Klunker

Prairies sequestrate more carbon than Forest?

"Most of the prairie's carbon sequestration happens below ground, where prairie roots can dig into the soil to depths up to 15 feet and more. Prairies can store much more carbon below ground than a forest can store above ground, according to Dr. Cynthia A. Cambardella, a soil scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment."

whole article.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Open Spaces Blog

personally I think this global warming, climate change or what ever its called this week and the concern over carbon is way over blown.

How much carbon is captured in your average Walmart parking lot?

Our leaders talk about global warming/climate change while flying around in private jets to their junkets on the seaside. Hollywood harps endlessly while driving Ferraris and trying to decide which mansion to spend the weekend at. The loudest have the biggest footprints, if they really carried wouldn't they walk the talk?

Don P

I've seen that before, managed intensive grazing puts more carbon into the soil than a forest can, quite understandable. That is still shallow carbon posing as sequestration. I think the only way we can really say we have comparably sequestered carbon is if the same quantity of carbon is buried under a few thousand feet of soil, then it is sequestered, until then it is still just cycling around perhaps buffered by a few or a few hundred years but certainly not the millions of years we are trying to say we are offsetting.

In the whole discussion of whether someone believes in this or not. It is really above my pay grade, as it is theirs, and there isn't a great deal I can do about it. I do believe in trying to be a good steward so I try to be mindful. I also still need to put food on the table, survival is job one so yup I'm about to go turn the key in the truck and go mix concrete, my footprint is huge. Whether I believe in something or not doesn't change the truth one iota. The largest part of the problem as I see it is there's just too dang many of us using the resources to be sustainable. Glad I don't have to be the one to decide which 7 billion people need to go. There's only one or two I want to send to Mars. I suspect just like any other species we will go to the carrying capacity and crash, perhaps rebounding and doing it repeatedly, perhaps going extinct. The vast majority of species that have inhabited this planet over time are extinct. We are not special no matter how much Mama believes to the contrary. I don't have an overriding fear that the planet will not recover, it has sequestered more carbon than is in the atmosphere presently. That doesn't mean we will be here to see it but I do believe the planet has more resiliency than we do. Wow, thanks guys, now I got a case of existential despair :D

wisconsitom

As a person who has actually installed several thousand acres of prairie plantings, I take issue with that expert's statement regarding prairie plants automatically extending their roots down to great depths, because of what species of plant they are.  This is fundamentally wrong, and completely ignores the entire issue of soil type.  Yes, under the right conditions, plants from species we call prairie species can indeed root to great depths.  But that same plant, installed over a clay hardpan....or over disturbed, compacted construction-site soil....will simply never do that.

Likewise, their are karst soil areas where tree roots-yes tree roots...have been found growing down into submerged water tables in the porous rocky soil, many feet below.  So again, soil factors, to a  large extent, determine depth of rooting.....not just for forest plants....how absurd that would be...but for all plants growing everywhere.

tom

PS....here in the east-central part of this state, I am never installing prairies when I do this work, I am installing prairie plantings.  Useful plant communities around these stormwater ponds and channels...but utterly unlike the actual native vegetation that could be found in this area in the way-back times.
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Southside

Plant species absolutely has an impact on root depth and root mat mass. This is exactly why I, and many others, plant forage raddish into hard, compacted soil. In several months these plants will send roots down 8' or more into soil that you can't drill with an auger. They pull up tremendous volumes of nutrients and leave them in the top soil layer when they die off in the spring.


Annual cereal rye is another example, there is something like 3,000 acres of root surface area for every acre of rye planted and those roots decompose in the soil come spring / early summer which is all carbon. 

It's no mystery as to why the great plains had the deepest and best topsoil with millennia of grass growth and bison trampling. Switch grass and other native, perennial root depth is measured in yards, not feet. 
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wisconsitom

"Switch grass and other native, perennial root depth is measured in yards, not feet. ".....Not where soil conditions do not permit such extravagant root growth and penetration.  No sir.  Nor do the prairie enthusiasts ever mention one word about mycorrhizae, probably the single most massive category of organism occurring in forested sites....and likely more massive than those supposed switchgrass root systems!  Switchgrass roots up here in cold, wet clay soil is indeed measured in inches...and not very many of them!

tom  
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