- #1
LightbulbSun
- 65
- 2
Since rising CO2 levels are the problem and trees take in CO2 while giving off oxygen, wouldn't growing a vast amount of trees solve Global Warming at a significant level or am I missing another element here?
Having actually asked this question myself to an Oxford professor that claimed to actually know something about this, I happen to know that the answer to this question is "no". The unfortunate thing however, is that I do not remember the exact details of the full answer she provided me.wouldn't growing a vast amount of trees solve Global Warming at a significant level ...?
Ouabache said:There is a bigger picture when considering the Earth's carbon cycle. Certainly trees do sink CO2 and so does the ocean's algae. See this reference especially Figure 5, for relative contributions from various sources in our carbon cycle.
Planting more trees is a good means of sinking atmospheric CO2. The best areas for growth are the tropical rainforests. Unfortunately, there the opposite is taking place. Large scale cattle ranchers have the financial clout to buy up large tracts of rainforest in tropical regions, burn them to the ground and then let grasses grow for grazing their animals. (ref2)
These soils will not sustain grass pasture very long and so the ranchers move on and burn down more rainforest. It would take serious political maneuvering to convince the governments of these countries, to change this policy.
LightbulbSun said:Is there any way of restoring a rain forest?
LightbulbSun said:Since rising CO2 levels are the problem and trees take in CO2 while giving off oxygen, wouldn't growing a vast amount of trees solve Global Warming at a significant level or am I missing another element here?
LightbulbSun said:Is there any way of restoring a rain forest?
cbacba said:All actions have reactions and unintended consequences can be substantial. Global temperature depends more on albedo and cloud cover than it does on a minor variation in the concentrations of a minor ghg. Methane is created by rice and other plants. Some plants help filter out the air and some put more crap in it than they filter out. Also, there can be tremendous amounts of insects - like termites involved in an area - depending upon what is there. These little buggers produce lots of CO2 and methane per their size (mass) when compared to just about anything else and there is substantially more mass of termites on Earth than there is mass of people on earth. In the realm of albedo, croplands reflect better than most surface items. Jungles tend to absorb much more than cropland and dirt plus creating large amounts of humidity and homes for tremendous masses of termites and other insects. Other than snow, desert sand is about the best albedo surface.
Doing things in moderation has little effect. Trying to make changes to large regions - like greening the sahara could have an effect assuming it didn't bankrupt the world economy before it was implemented. Unfortunately, all these nice touchie feely good feeling things like replacing the desert with jungle - or saving the rain forests - often tend to actually have detrimental effects on climate balance - for whatever effects they might have. In other words, those greedy land grabbing agribusinesses cutting down the rainforests in south america are actually helping reduce global warming - regardless of what damage they may or may not be doing otherwise. Many things in this arena also have dual effects. A giant forest fire might might put lots of CO2 in the air - but it will likely put lots of aerosols and particulates up in the atmosphere which might counteract warming more than the CO2 promotes the warming. It would appear at present that the push to establish pollution controls on coal burning may have made cleaner air, cleaner snow and a hotter climate. For certain, those people in the antinuke protesting business undoubtedly helped force the use of more coal for electrical generation in the US helping create more pollution and more CO2 emissions to a measurable point.
I've seen that some think human agriculture is responsible for our failure to return yet to another major ice age. This may or may not be accurate. However, a major ice age will be devastating for many centuries when (or if) it occurs. Most of the global warming hysteria is only that. It is apparently being generated to counteract the notion that such an event - if it were to happen - might even be beneficial overall to man and most species of plants and animals.
If you're talking about GHGs (hence the thread title "Global Warming"), cars produce relatively little of the overall anthropogenic GHGs from a global standpoint. Riding more bicycles would have no material affect on the problem.kusha02 said:...if in big city like in new york , LA , washingont etc we use bike not cars we do good job in this case beacuse the contaminations of air 60% is from cars...
LightbulbSun said:Since rising CO2 levels are the problem and trees take in CO2 while giving off oxygen, wouldn't growing a vast amount of trees solve Global Warming at a significant level or am I missing another element here?
Skyhunter said:cbaca,
Sorry I took so long to respond.
You are simply taking numbers and putting them together like tiles in a scrabble game.
TSI is not 168 W/m2. The solar constant is 367 W/m2. So all your calculations based on your simple model using the http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/hitran//" database are meaningless, ie garbage in equals garbage out.
The reason that planting trees in the NH is at best GW neutral is because of winter albedo. trees break up snow cover reducing the albedo during NH winter.
Clouds vary in their effect on temperature depending on what kind and where they form. High thin clouds contribute significantly to warming, while low cumulus clouds have a negative impact on warming.