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How does this affect plans to sequester carbon by planting trees? I know in Canada our forests have been a net carbon source rather than sink for almost two de
by graeme 7y ago
How does this affect plans to sequester carbon by planting trees?
I know in Canada our forests have been a net carbon source rather than sink for almost two decades, as they burn or fall to invasive insects moving north with the warmer weather.
Obviously a tree sequesters carbon while still living. But, how likely are new forests to last in conditions of rapid changes in temperature and dryness?
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Edited to add that the article does have some comments on this indirectly, stating that since trees live a long time, they migrate too slowly for the pace of climate change we have coming. Forest experts say the french forest ecosystem won't survive.
L’étude montre aussi que les espèces qui se renouvellent en un an s’adaptent plus vite que les espèces pérennes. Mais les arbres, dont certaines essences peuvent vivre des centaines d’années, ont une mobilité trop lente pour s’adapter au réchauffement actuel. « Sur une échelle très longue, les espèces vont progressivement migrer. Mais là, le changement climatique est extrêmement rapide ! Il va s’installer sur un siècle, c’est le temps de vie de certains arbres », alerte Nicolas Viovy, du LSCE
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Les chercheurs sont, pour l’heure, assez pessimistes. « Si on continue sur la lancée des émissions actuelles de CO2, le système forestier français ne va pas résister. Il faut changer drastiquement de mode de vie sinon les écosystèmes ne s’en sortiront pas. Mais ce qui est désolant, c’est qu’on le dit depuis les années 2000, et ça ne change rien », s’inquiète Hervé Cochard, de l’INRA. Même si Brigitte Musch estime que la situation n’est « pas encore irréversible », elle met en garde : si les arbres déclinent, « ils n’absorbent plus de gaz carbonique », ce qui « amplifie le réchauffement climatique »
- black_puppydog 7y agoTo address insect infestations, I'd guess it will be key to not plant huge monocultures. That should make the new forests much more resilient to bugs and such as a whole, and allow for more rapid re-growth if/when trees do get bitten by the bug. The overall dryness might be more of a problem.
- Mikeb85 7y agoCan't exactly help the fact that the whole boreal forest is a monoculture... Pine beetles have been able to thrive because winters haven't been cold enough to consistently kill them, although this last winter was.
- jbeales 7y ago> How does this affect plans to sequester carbon by planting trees? I would guess we can still get at least 20 years of sequestration out of trees planted today. Assuming we actually figure out how to tame runaway emissions and/or sequester enough, if we keep planting more & more northward I would expect we'll hit a point where things stabilize and we don't have to keep moving north. Or we start planting teak & palms in Winnipeg.