Forests can store more carbon emissions than earlier thought
July 15th, 2011 - 7:27 am ICT by IANSVienna, July 15 (IANS) Forests can store more carbon dioxide (CO2) than previously thought, a study has found.
From 1990 to 2007, 8.8 billion tonnes of CO2 were released in the world through the use of fossil fuels, but about one third of them were absorbed by forests.
Forests are responsible for the entire terrestrial storage of CO2, said Anatoly Shvidenko, one of the authors of the study from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg near Vienna.
The important role of forests as a global “vacuum cleaner” of climate-damaging greenhouse gas CO2 has long been clear but the new data have proved their higher importance as terrestrial CO2-sink, Xinhua reported quoting IIASA.
Data shows tropical rain forests are responsible for the absorption of over one billion tonnes of carbon per year.
The boreal coniferous forest in northern zones, primarily in Canada and Russia, swallows some 500 million tonnes per year, while the forests in the temperate zones stores annually around 780 million tonnes of carbon, according to the study published in the journal Science Thursday.
It also shows about four billion hectares of forest currently absorbs over 860 million tonnes of carbon, mainly in forest soils and plants. However, deforestation releases 2.9 billion tonnes of carbon every year.
It is therefore necessary to prevent the deforestation of rain forests so that the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere can be limited, said Yude Pans, lead author of the study.
- Forests remove 2.4 bn tonnes of carbon from air - Aug 11, 2011
- Mangroves among most carbon-rich tropical forests - Apr 06, 2011
- Seagrass can help mitigate climate change - May 23, 2012
- Tropical vegetation stores more carbon than thought - Jan 31, 2012
- NASA satellites produce first map of global forest heights - Jul 21, 2010
- 2 severe Amazon droughts in 5 years stir climate fear - Feb 04, 2011
- Amazon droughts alarm scientists - Feb 04, 2011
- Warmer temperatures increase CO2 release by inland lakes - Jul 22, 2010
- Abrupt thaw in permafrost heightens climatic threat - Dec 04, 2011
- World forests capturing more carbon - Jun 07, 2011
- Slashing meat intake vital for curbing emissions - Apr 16, 2012
- Stop fungal disease in crops, feed 600 million - Apr 12, 2012
- US forests can soak up 50 year-equivalent of CO2 emissions - Dec 13, 2009
- Climate change 'causing wildfires to burn more fiercely' - Dec 06, 2010
- Halting carbon dioxide emissions cannot avert climate change - Jul 03, 2010
Tags: accumulation, applied systems analysis, carbon dioxide, carbon emissions, co2 in the atmosphere, deforestation, forest soils, fossil fuels, gas co2, greenhouse gas, hectares, iiasa, journal science, laxenburg, one billion, swallows, temperate zones, tonnes, tropical rain forests, xinhua