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> my own team's research suggests this is more like 60% My point was he hasn't cited that research - if it is concluded ? published? reviewed? He seems to be

> my own team's research suggests this is more like 60% My point was he hasn't cited that research - if it is concluded ? published? reviewed? He seems to be just having a technical rant about a contextual phrase while giving the impression that forests in general, or at least the amazon or equatorial forests do not help maintain the atmospheres oxygen content. That would certainly be a maveric proposition at this stage in Earth sciences.

shkkmo 7y ago
> My point was he hasn't cited that research - if it is concluded ? published? reviewed? I am far more willing to take the word of an established and respected expert who understand the subject mater than a random internet person with a poorly contextualized citation. You can find the author's published papers on this and related subjects quite easily at the top of the article. > He seems to be just having a technical rant about a contextual phrase while giving the impression that forests in general, or at least the amazon or equatorial forests do not help maintain the atmospheres oxygen content. That would certainly be a maverick proposition at this stage in Earth sciences. He is a scientist clarifying a technical subject that has been being misconstrued. There has already been plenty of damage done by people throwing around fake facts and pictures.
- strainer 7y ago
  The problem is I feel that he has confused understanding of the subject here rather than clarifying it, which is an easy thing for anybody to do in a conversational article. Here is a recent work[1] which substantiates matters that Amazons practical involvement in the planets atmospheric oxygen/carbon levels is really not as the professor felt like putting it as "effectively zero". > Abstract: The response of the Earth’s land surface to increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 and a changing climate provide important feedbacks on future greenhouse warming6,7. One of the largest ecosystem carbon pools on Earth is the Amazon forest, storing around 150–200 Pg C in living biomass and soils8. Earlier studies based on forest inventories in the Amazon Basin showed the tropical forest here to be acting as a strong carbon sink with an estimated annual uptake of 0.42–0.65 Pg C yr−1 for 1990–2007, around 25% of the residual terrestrial carbon sink3,4. There is, however, substantial uncertainty as to how the Amazon forest will respond to future climatic and atmospheric composition changes. .... Here we analyse the longest and largest spatially distributed time series of forest dynamics for tropical South America. .... Our data show that mature forests continued to act as a biomass sink from 1983 to 2011.5, but also reveal a long-term decline in the net rate of biomass increase throughout the census period. The decline in net biomass change is due to a strong long-term increase in mortality rates, and occurred despite a long-term increase in productivity. While mortality increased throughout the period, productivity increases have recently stalled showing no significant trend since 2000. .... [1]https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14283 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14283 Published in Nature: 18 March 2015 : "Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink"
  - EB66 7y ago
    > The problem is I feel that he has confused understanding of the subject here rather than clarifying it, which is an easy thing for anybody to do in a conversational article. I couldn't agree more. A bunch of people are coming away from reading that article believing that forests have no impact on global carbon sequestration and oxygen production. In attempting to make a contrarian technical point and refute mass media figures, the author has done a disservice to furthering public understanding of the issue. Sure, a mature forest can come into equilibrium with regard to carbon/oxygen production and consumption. A forest could even be a net contributor of atmospheric carbon by means of an insect or fungus overpopulation. However: 1. Studies show that's not true for the Amazon rainforest (annually it is still a carbon sink). 2. Over the lifetime of the forest the effect is clearly a massive gain in oxygen and massive sequestration of carbon as evidenced by all the biomass (e.g., trees) and dirt you find in forests.
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      > A bunch of people are coming away from reading that article believing that forests have no impact on global carbon sequestration and oxygen production. If you were really concerned about people misunderstanding the article, you would not make up claims and attribute them to the author. Instead you would quote the relevant parts of the article to demonstrate what is actually being said. The author in no way claims that the Amazon is in equilibrium, (probably because as one of the foremost global experts on rainforest carbon cycles, he knows it isn't.) Edit: The claims are quite specific: 1) The amazon provides ~9% of the global O2 production. 2) The amazon consumes most of the O2 it produces through tree metabolism and wood decomposition. 3) There is way, way more O2 in the atmosphere than CO2 so the effects all human activity (or ecosystems) on global O2 levels are miniscule compared to their effect on global CO2 levels. Burning down the entire amazon rainforest would be a bad for a number of reasons (release of CO2, changes in global weather patterns, loss of bio-diversity, etc), but impact on global atmospheric O2 levels is NOT one of those reasons. Fear mongering about a non-issue with made up facts only serves to provide ammunition to anti-science skeptics.
      - 7y ago

shkkmo 7y ago

> My point was he hasn't cited that research - if it is concluded ? published? reviewed? I am far more willing to take the word of an established and respected expert who understand the subject mater than a random internet person with a poorly contextualized citation. You can find the author's published papers on this and related subjects quite easily at the top of the article. > He seems to be just having a technical rant about a contextual phrase while giving the impression that forests in general, or at least the amazon or equatorial forests do not help maintain the atmospheres oxygen content. That would certainly be a maverick proposition at this stage in Earth sciences. He is a scientist clarifying a technical subject that has been being misconstrued. There has already been plenty of damage done by people throwing around fake facts and pictures.

strainer 7y ago
The problem is I feel that he has confused understanding of the subject here rather than clarifying it, which is an easy thing for anybody to do in a conversational article. Here is a recent work[1] which substantiates matters that Amazons practical involvement in the planets atmospheric oxygen/carbon levels is really not as the professor felt like putting it as "effectively zero". > Abstract: The response of the Earth’s land surface to increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 and a changing climate provide important feedbacks on future greenhouse warming6,7. One of the largest ecosystem carbon pools on Earth is the Amazon forest, storing around 150–200 Pg C in living biomass and soils8. Earlier studies based on forest inventories in the Amazon Basin showed the tropical forest here to be acting as a strong carbon sink with an estimated annual uptake of 0.42–0.65 Pg C yr−1 for 1990–2007, around 25% of the residual terrestrial carbon sink3,4. There is, however, substantial uncertainty as to how the Amazon forest will respond to future climatic and atmospheric composition changes. .... Here we analyse the longest and largest spatially distributed time series of forest dynamics for tropical South America. .... Our data show that mature forests continued to act as a biomass sink from 1983 to 2011.5, but also reveal a long-term decline in the net rate of biomass increase throughout the census period. The decline in net biomass change is due to a strong long-term increase in mortality rates, and occurred despite a long-term increase in productivity. While mortality increased throughout the period, productivity increases have recently stalled showing no significant trend since 2000. .... [1]https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14283 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14283 Published in Nature: 18 March 2015 : "Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink"
- EB66 7y ago
  > The problem is I feel that he has confused understanding of the subject here rather than clarifying it, which is an easy thing for anybody to do in a conversational article. I couldn't agree more. A bunch of people are coming away from reading that article believing that forests have no impact on global carbon sequestration and oxygen production. In attempting to make a contrarian technical point and refute mass media figures, the author has done a disservice to furthering public understanding of the issue. Sure, a mature forest can come into equilibrium with regard to carbon/oxygen production and consumption. A forest could even be a net contributor of atmospheric carbon by means of an insect or fungus overpopulation. However: 1. Studies show that's not true for the Amazon rainforest (annually it is still a carbon sink). 2. Over the lifetime of the forest the effect is clearly a massive gain in oxygen and massive sequestration of carbon as evidenced by all the biomass (e.g., trees) and dirt you find in forests.
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    > A bunch of people are coming away from reading that article believing that forests have no impact on global carbon sequestration and oxygen production. If you were really concerned about people misunderstanding the article, you would not make up claims and attribute them to the author. Instead you would quote the relevant parts of the article to demonstrate what is actually being said. The author in no way claims that the Amazon is in equilibrium, (probably because as one of the foremost global experts on rainforest carbon cycles, he knows it isn't.) Edit: The claims are quite specific: 1) The amazon provides ~9% of the global O2 production. 2) The amazon consumes most of the O2 it produces through tree metabolism and wood decomposition. 3) There is way, way more O2 in the atmosphere than CO2 so the effects all human activity (or ecosystems) on global O2 levels are miniscule compared to their effect on global CO2 levels. Burning down the entire amazon rainforest would be a bad for a number of reasons (release of CO2, changes in global weather patterns, loss of bio-diversity, etc), but impact on global atmospheric O2 levels is NOT one of those reasons. Fear mongering about a non-issue with made up facts only serves to provide ammunition to anti-science skeptics.
    - 7y ago