NASA Goddard Institute Article
The article below has information in it relevant to both Young-Earth Creationists (carbon dating), as well as Global Warming critics. This is for the minuscule amount of young-earth creation scientists that visit my site from time-to-time. Yes, take note this is from the same Institution that Dr. Hansen heads up, and they are pumping out info that throws a “cog” into Hansen’s Global Warming “scare tactic” to get democrats into office.
FIRE FREQUENCY DETERMINES
March 21, 2003
Scientists studying trees ranging from saplings to 130 years old in
Boreal or northern forests account for close to 25 percent of total carbon stored in vegetation and soils in the Earth’s biosphere. Wildfires burn down individual areas every 40 to 250 years and are an important part of this ecosystem. Whether or not these forests are likely to lower or raise levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere depends on how these carbon reserves respond to, and recover from, both climate change and disturbances such as wildfires.
NASA funded part of this study under its Earth Science Enterprise (ESE), whose mission is to understand and protect our home planet. Earth Science in NASA seeks to understand trends in land cover and land use, such as forest fires, that drive global climate. Another Earth Science program objective is to understand the Earth system’s response to natural and human-induced changes, and effects on global carbon cycle.
Marcy Litvak, plant ecologist at the
Carbon is transferred from the atmosphere to the forest through the process of photosynthesis. Carbon is returned to the atmosphere through the process of respiration as soil microorganisms decompose dead organic matter, and trees and mosses metabolize the products of photosynthesis. It is the balance between these two processes, taking in carbon during photosynthesis and "exhaling" carbon through respiration, that determines how much carbon is stored in the forest.
Between 1999-2000, Litvak and her colleagues, Scott Miller and Michael Goulden of the
"Seedlings of Aspen, Jack Pine, and Black Spruce all regenerate simultaneously following wildfire in areas once dominated by mature black spruce forests in this region of Manitoba.
Stands less than 20 years old store less carbon than older trees because they lack sufficient leaf area for rapid carbon accumulation. Carbon storage is highest in stands 20-50 years old that are dominated by rapidly growing aspen trees that take up carbon at higher rates than black spruce and jack pine trees.
"Stands [of trees] older than 70 years are dominated by black spruce trees and thick moss cover that ‘exhale and inhale’ equal amounts of carbon. That means stands older than 70 years are in near carbon balance with the atmosphere," she said.
Knowing the rate at which trees respire will help scientists to better estimate the trees' contributions to the global carbon cycle. This is especially important because of the changing climate. "Increased fire frequency, as predicted from global warming scenarios, has the potential to significantly impact the contribution boreal forests make to the global carbon cycle," Miller said.
NASA data from the Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) was also used in the study. BOREAS was a large-scale international experiment in the northern forests of
This work was supported by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and U.S. Department of Energy.