[Newsbot]

Title: Carbon dioxide emissions help tropical rainforests grow faster
Category: Environmental
Posted By: N_Fiddledog
Date: 2014-12-31 01:11:58

[andyt]

I don['t see how those forests can continue to absorb carbon for ever. At some point they'd have to reach the maximum rate that plants can grow - some herbicides work exactly by making the plant grow faster than it's systems can support.

Rain forest soils are very poor "laterite" soils. They don't have a deep humus layer like some soils (tall grass prairie for instance) have in Canada. All the biomass is in the vegetation, not the soil, so as plants die they are quickly recycled, with carbon and oxygen released back to the air, rather than being stored in the humus layer.

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

I don['t see how those forests can continue to absorb carbon for ever.

Plants grow and forests will grow so long as they're not being clear cut to provide cheap hamburger for McDonald's and ethanol for idiots who hate oil.

[andyt]

Not my point. What I meant was that this increase in growth rate can't continue, there's a limit. So at some point, I would think that the forest would reach homeostasis. Now, maybe there's still lots of room for growth rate increase, i don't know that. But for sure, as the article points out, cutting down the rain forest is going to result in a huge release of carbon.

[DrCaleb]

andyt andyt:

Not my point. What I meant was that this increase in growth rate can't continue, there's a limit. So at some point, I would think that the forest would reach homeostasis. Now, maybe there's still lots of room for growth rate increase, i don't know that. But for sure, as the article points out, cutting down the rain forest is going to result in a huge release of carbon.

Tests I've seen show that plants will grow faster with increases in Co2 as you'd expect, but will soon use up all the fertilizers in the ground that occur with natural decay. Then they rapidly die and decompose, releasing all the carbon they stored to begin with and making more atmospheric Co2 than before.

[BartSimpson]

Then I guess it's time for everyone to give up industrialized civilization.

You first.

[raydan]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

andyt andyt:

Not my point. What I meant was that this increase in growth rate can't continue, there's a limit. So at some point, I would think that the forest would reach homeostasis. Now, maybe there's still lots of room for growth rate increase, i don't know that. But for sure, as the article points out, cutting down the rain forest is going to result in a huge release of carbon.

Tests I've seen show that plants will grow faster with increases in Co2 as you'd expect, but will soon use up all the fertilizers in the ground that occur with natural decay. Then they rapidly die and decompose, releasing all the carbon they stored to begin with and making more atmospheric Co2 than before.

Not necessary released immediately... after all, this is how our coal reserves were formed.

[Jabberwalker]

It would sure be helpful, then, if people would stop clear cutting our carbon sinks.

[andyt]

raydan raydan:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

andyt andyt:

Not my point. What I meant was that this increase in growth rate can't continue, there's a limit. So at some point, I would think that the forest would reach homeostasis. Now, maybe there's still lots of room for growth rate increase, i don't know that. But for sure, as the article points out, cutting down the rain forest is going to result in a huge release of carbon.

Tests I've seen show that plants will grow faster with increases in Co2 as you'd expect, but will soon use up all the fertilizers in the ground that occur with natural decay. Then they rapidly die and decompose, releasing all the carbon they stored to begin with and making more atmospheric Co2 than before.

Not necessary released immediately... after all, this is how our coal reserves were formed.

Coal came from steamy swamps, not rain forests, where as I wrote above, most of the plant biomass is in the vegetation itself. There is very little organic matter or nutrients in the soils of tropical rainforests, because the rain washes it away. What there is is rapid decomposition and the nutrients are taken up by the living plants again. Coal doesn't form from living plants.

This would also explain why the forests are acting as carbon sink - the rapid cycling of nutrients back into the living plants. Still, there would have to be a limit to that cycle, where the plants can't grow any faster because they can't access the nutrients at a faster rate.

[Xort]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Tests I've seen show that plants will grow faster with increases in Co2 as you'd expect, but will soon use up all the fertilizers in the ground that occur with natural decay. Then they rapidly die and decompose, releasing all the carbon they stored to begin with and making more atmospheric Co2 than before.

Oh wait, UR serious.

[DrCaleb]

Xort Xort:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Tests I've seen show that plants will grow faster with increases in Co2 as you'd expect, but will soon use up all the fertilizers in the ground that occur with natural decay. Then they rapidly die and decompose, releasing all the carbon they stored to begin with and making more atmospheric Co2 than before.

Oh wait, your serious.

/you're

[raydan]

Isn't it fun going "grammar police" on someone who's trying to mock you?

[Jabberwalker]

I saw the same thing. I didn't bother commenting (consider the source).

[DrCaleb]

raydan raydan:

Isn't it fun going "grammar police" on someone who's trying to mock you?

Always.

If all he can do is attempt to ridicule me, which I realize is all he has left, at the very least proper grammar would show some small effort on his part.

[N_Fiddledog]

I was going to leave this alone, but if we're going to get all cocky about how something like this...

$1:

Tests I've seen show that plants will grow faster with increases in Co2 as you'd expect, but will soon use up all the fertilizers in the ground that occur with natural decay. Then they rapidly die and decompose, releasing all the carbon they stored to begin with and making more atmospheric Co2 than before.

cannot be challenged, what the Hell, I'll play.

Show us those tests. I'm not even sure how they'd do them. Do they grow trees, then watch them grow and die, or something? Why would it make only "atmospheric Co2? Why wouldn't it also make carbon and oxygen? Isn't the largest carbon sink the Ocean. How much of this released Co2 from decay would be swallowed up there?

Unless you're saying tropical rainforests quickly become deserts, in which case...show me...wouldn't the replacement rainforest also be swallowing up some Co2.

Give me some facts and figures from these tests. How much actual Co2 is being released that is not managed by natural feedbacks. BTW biomass is actually increasing worldwide. Why is that?