Nation's forests help offset greenhouse gas emissions

U.S. forests sequester enough carbon every year to offset roughly 11% of the country's industrial greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new federal report.

The inventory ranks California among the top states in forest carbon storage, not far behind its woodsy neighbors to the North, Oregon and Washington.

Shifting land-use patterns -- particularly the 20th century abandonment of farms in the East and the subsequent regrowth of woodlands -- have helped turn U.S. forests as a whole into a carbon sink, meaning they absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they release through natural processes.

From a global warming perspective, that is a welcome trend and one that creates the potential for forest owners to sell credits on emerging carbon markets. But it also raises questions of how -- and whether -- forests can be managed to maintain that role.

The majority of the nation's 797 million acres of forestland is in private ownership, much if it in the East, where development is chewing into the woods.  "There is a real concern that the continued loss of open space and development into forest lands in the East, in particular, is going to reduce the amount of carbon we have in our forests,” said U.S. Agriculture Deputy Under Secretary Ann Bartuska.

On Western public lands, wildfire and tree mortality from bark beetle epidemics could put a dent in forest carbon storage.

Before settlement, woodlands were probably in carbon equilibrium, releasing about as much carbon as they took up, said David Cleaves, U.S. Forest Service climate change advisor.When the settlers cleared vast expanses of forest and burned trees as fuel, a long-term rise in forest emissions was set in motion, peaking in the early 1900s.

That started to reverse as the woods reclaimed fields and a federal policy of suppressing wildfire allowed dense, young stands to grow, increasing not only the amount of woodland, but the volume of carbon stored per acre.

Now the nation's forests bank an estimated 41.4 billion metric tons of carbon -- roughly the equivalent of 20 years of U.S. fossil fuel emissions, Cleaves said. Every year, the Forest Service says new growth absorbs carbon dioxide in quantities that are the equivalent of taking 135 million cars off the road.

--Bettina Boxall

Photo: Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County. Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Moni Fiedler]

In Germany, if you want to build on forested land, you must purchase equivalent land elsewhere within the country to be set aside for growing trees. Usually, this is done by "buying" growing rights from farmers willing to turn some of their own acreage into forest instead of productive farm land. It becomes part of the cost of building on the property. How carefully the property being reforested is overseen by government agencies is of course a question. However, all such exchanges are registered. I expect if the farmer then wants to re-utilize this land as farm land, he also would have to find another willing to make the exchange.

[Windfall]

Again, the Marxist Mouthpiece LA Times runs an article with a headline which assumes facts not in evidence.

“Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life.” - Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100058265/us-physics-professor-global-warming-is-the-greatest-and-most-successful-pseudoscientific-fraud-i-have-seen-in-my-long-life/

[save the deserts!]

Peter, the trees release the carbon when you cut them down...

[Teaser38]

A lot of new growth will completely be negated by massive forest fires. Shifting precipitation patterns, higher temperatures and unnatural fire suppression will lead to larger, hotter fires. Also, all that unburnt fallen material in the meantime rots creating methane.

[LA Observer]

It also does nothing for air pollution and smog.

Remember the Clean Air Act?

Apparently CARB has forgotten that.

[RGA]

While forests can take carbon out of the atmosphere, they are darker than other types of land. This means they absorb more sunlight, heating the surface, and counteracting the effect of sequestering the carbon.

See http://tinyurl.com/2bpug7e for an article that discusses this effect.

[Peter Ghery]

Trees absorb more carbon while growing.

Thus, we should use more wood in building materials and let the forest regrow.

[John Dodds]

While taking CO2 outof the air is a nice goal, it does absolutelyy nothing to the temperature. Climate change temperature is dictated by the number and amount of energy photons that come into the Earth as dictated by the eccentricity of the planets & the rise & fall of gravitic potential energy.
Thus the value of removing the CO2 is zero.