Carbon forest

Human activity, particularly in the developing world, continues to make it more difficult to sustain the world s biomass growth areas. It has been estimated that tropical forests are disappearing at a rate of tens of thousands of hm per year. Satellite imaging and field surveys show that Brazil alone has a deforestation rate of approximately 8 x 10 hm /yr (5). At a mean net carbon yield for tropical rain forests of 9.90 t/hm yr (4) (4.42 short ton /acreyr), this rate of deforestation corresponds to a loss of 79.2 x 10 t/yr of net biomass carbon productivity. 

Carbon. Most of the Earth s supply of carbon is stored in carbonate rocks in the Hthosphere. Normally the circulation rate for Hthospheric carbon is slow compared with that of carbon between the atmosphere and biosphere. The carbon cycle has received much attention in recent years as a result of research into the possible relation between increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, most of which is produced by combustion of fossil fuel, and the "greenhouse effect," or global warming. Extensive research has been done on the rate at which carbon dioxide might be converted to cellulose and other photosyntheticaHy produced organic compounds by various forms of natural and cultivated plants. Estimates also have been made of the rate at which carbon dioxide is released to soil under optimum conditions by various kinds of plant cover, such as temperature-zone deciduous forests, cultivated farm crops, prairie grassland, and desert vegetation. 

An extensive source of natural pollutants is the plants and trees of the earth. Even though these green plants play a large part in the conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen through photosynthesis, they are still the major source of hydrocarbons on the planet. The familiar blue haze over forested areas is nearly all from the atmospheric reactions of the volatile organics... 

Under low-dose conditions, forest ecosystems act as sinks for atmospheric pollutants and in some instances as sources. As indicated in Chapter 7, the atmosphere, lithosphere, and oceans are involved in cycling carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and other elements through each subsystem with different time scales. Under low-dose conditions, forest and other biomass systems have been utilizing chemical compounds present in the atmosphere and releasing others to the atmosphere for thousands of years. Industrialization has increased the concentrations of NO2, SO2, and CO2 in the "clean background" atmosphere, and certain types of interactions with forest systems can be defined. 

Hoch-wald, m. (high) forest, timber forest, -warmeverkohlung, /, high-temperature carbonization. 

Schlamdinger, B., and Marland, G. (1996). The Role of Forest and Bioenegy Strategies in the Global Carbon Cycle. Biomass and Biocncrgy 10(5/6) 275-300. 

A 1999 study by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology predicts that tropical rain forests will be able to continue to absorb carbon dioxide at the current rate of 2 billion tons per year until global temperatures rise by 8°F (4.5°C). At this point, evaporation rates will be high enough to decrease rainfall for the forests, leading to the collapse of tropical ecosystems. This collapse will decrease the amount of carbon... 

FIGURE 15.31 A "forest" of carbon nanotubes that grew in vertical alignment in a "bottom-up" fashion. 

Another model, first introduced by Moore, et al. (2i), was used to examine the role of terrestrial vegetation and the global carbon cycle, but did not include an ocean component. This model depended on estimates of carbon pool size and rates of CO2 uptake and release. This model has been used to project the effect of forest clearing and land-use change on the global carbon cycle (22, 23, 24). 

Several studies, based on models, examined the effects of land-use change on the global carbon cycle and conclude that there is a net release of carbon due to land clearing. However, the results and conclusions of these studies are based on assumed sizes of vegetation carbon pools which are inputs to the models. For example, Melillo et al. 24) concluded that boreal and temperate deciduous forests of the northern hemisphere are net sources of atmospheric carbon. Their analysis used values for carbon density derived by Whittaker and Likens 19) from work by Rodin and Bazilevich (27). Rodin and Bazilevich extrapolated results of small, unrelated studies in Europe and the USSR to estimate total biomass of Eurasian boreal and temperate deciduous forests. Their estimates have since been extrapolated to forests worldwide and are used often today. 

Table I. Estimation of the global vegetation carbon pool using the latest estimates of total carbon density for forests.

Most vegetation maps are derived from a variety of sources using different methods and made at different times. This can lead to an overlap between adjacent areas of interest, the exclusion of some areas, and the improper extrapolation of carbon densities, thus resulting in inaccurate estimates of reservoir size. We found that the biomass density of the southern North American boreal forest was over 2.5 times larger than the biomass density of the northern part of the boreal forest (55). Past estimates of boreal forest biomass density extrapolated southern biomass density values to the entire boreal forest, which in part accounts for the large overestimation (7). It is important that a consistent method be developed to map vegetation globally. 

Figure 2. The carbon dynamics of a primary forest prior to and following deforestation and slash burning. Arrows represent the relative magnitude of C flux. In the primary forest (represented by the large box at the top of the figure), the C pool is in a dynamic equilibrium with inputs approximately equalling exports. With deforestation and fire, the balance is altered with exports far exceeding imports.

The burning of slash following deforestation, whether intentional or unintentional, results in far greater direct and indirect losses of nutrients than deforestation alone. This is particularly true in many tropical forests where only a small fraction (if any) of the aboveground biomass is removed prior to burning. Carbon losses from slash fires in the tropical dry forest were 4-5 fold greater than C losses from wood export (Table IV) (55). Slash fires in tropical dry forests resulted in N losses of 428-500 kg ha whereas fuel wood export of the relatively N-poor coarse woody debris amounted to approximately 41 kg N ha" Losses of P increase with increasing fire severity. P losses of 10-77 kg ha" as a result of severe fires is not uncommon (Table TV) (53, 58, 60). 

Tropical forests and savannas are the primary source of C emissions that originate from biomass burning (73, 75). However, temperate forests are also sources of atmospheric carbon. Harmon et al. (77) reported that conversion of primary temperate forests to younger, second-growth forests lead to increases in atmospheric CO2 levels, due to losses in long-term carbon storage within these forests. They ascertained that timber exploitation of 5 million hectares of primaiy forests in the Pacific Northwest of North America during the past century has resulted in the addition of 1,500 Tg of C to the atmosphere. 

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