New study shows lianas dramatically reduce carbon sequestration by crowding out, killing trees
Just when we thought we were getting closer to understanding tropical forests’ tremendously valuable service of sucking carbon from the air and socking it away in tree trunks and other biomass, along comes a new variable: woody vines. (more…)
A new analysis of NASA satellite data shows Africa’s Congo rainforest, the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world, has undergone a large-scale decline in greenness over the past decade.
The study, led by Liming Zhou of University at Albany, State University of New York, shows between 2000 and 2012, the decline affected an increasing amount of forest area and intensified. The research, published Wednesday in Nature, is one of the most comprehensive observational studies to explore the effects of long-term drought on the Congo rainforest using several independent satellite sensors. (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study comparing the carbon-holding power of freshwater wetlands has produced measurements suggesting that wetlands in temperate regions are more valuable as carbon sinks than current policies imply, according to researchers.
The study compared several wetlands at two Ohio wetland sites: one composed of mostly stagnant water and one characterized by water regularly flowing through it. The study showed that the stagnant wetland had an average carbon storage rate per year that is almost twice as high as the carbon storage rate of the flow-through wetland. (more…)
Report evaluates amount of carbon absorbed by wetlands, grasslands and forests in the Great Plains region
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of the Interior today released the first in a series of regional studies measuring the amount of carbon stored in U.S. ecosystems. Published by Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the study examines the current and projected future carbon storage in the Great Plains region, as part of a nation-wide assessment. (more…)
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists have found that carbon is stored in the soils and sediments of the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin for a surprisingly long time, making it likely that global warming could destabilize the pool of carbon there and in similar places on Earth, potentially increasing the rate of CO2 release into the atmosphere. (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The aging forests of the Upper Great Lakes could be considered the baby boomers of the region’s ecosystem.
The decline of trees in this area is a cause for concern among policymakers and ecologists who wonder whether the end of the forests’ most productive years means they will no longer offer the benefits they are known for: cleansed air, fertile soil, filtered water and, most important to climate change analysts, carbon storage that offsets greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)
California is showing the way for the rest of the nation in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, having set an ambitious goal to reduce these emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. Given that energy demand is projected to double by 2050, experts agree that the state will have to dramatically overhaul its energy systems to achieve its greenhouse gas emission goals.
At the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, some of the specific challenges and issue ahead were discussed in a session titled “Portraits of the California Energy System in 2050: Cutting Emissions by 80 Percent.” Contributing to this discussion were two scientists from Berkeley Lab and one from the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), in which Berkeley Lab is a partner. (more…)
A Million-Dollar Question
Sleeping Beauty’s kingdom was overgrown by vines when she fell into a deep sleep. Researchers at the Smithsonian in Panama and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee received more than a million dollars from the U.S. National Science Foundation to discover why real vines are overtaking the American tropics. Data from eight sites show that vines are overgrowing trees in all cases.
“We are witnessing a fundamental structural change in the physical make-up of forests that will have a profound impact on the animals, human communities and businesses that depend on them for their livelihoods,” said Stefan Schnitzer, research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. (more…)
