3 ms·
Why should it ever have been a carbon sink? I thought forests were neutral as they release carbon when old growth decomposes?
by mrfusion 5y ago
Why should it ever have been a carbon sink? I thought forests were neutral as they release carbon when old growth decomposes?
- eloff 5y agoI would guess that process is not 100% efficient and some stays buried in the soil. Just a guess though. The big deal with forests is they keep a large amount of carbon out of the atmosphere on a rotating basis. We really need that right now.
- fulafel 5y agoIn the long run, presupposing a constant size of forest, this is approximately true, but 1 if you harvest sustainably and use the lumber for building long lived structures, it might be a sink in the timescale that's important for combating global warming. 2 these forests have been sinking a lot, stands to reason they could alternatively be expanding, which would make them a carbon sink for the duration of the expansion
- maCDzP 5y agoIf they were neutral we wouldn’t have fossil fuels. Oil, coal and peat are made of old forests, wetlands and what not.
- mrfusion 5y agoI thought they were made before life had figured out how to digest cellulose.
- helen___keller 5y agoIt's worth mentioning that carbon deposits are not made uniformly, and in fact certain geological periods are known for having large deposits of carbon while others have almost none.
- maCDzP 5y agoTrue - I generalized too much.