More carbon dioxide in atmosphere, more forest cover will be there to absorb it.

Increasing carbon dioxide benefits trees.

by

Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi

Almost 100% of the observed temperature increase over the last 50 years has been due to the increase in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas concentrations like water vapour, methane and ozone.. The largest contributing source of carbon dioxide gas is the burning of fossil fuels. Research says more carbon dioxide more heating of the earth. This is one aspect of the carbon dioxide. Other aspect is its relation with the trees. If we believe on the researches by the scientists, increasing carbon dioxide benefits trees.

Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota at Morris have found that increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have led to the rapid growth of certain tree species. The quaking aspen, a popular North America deciduous tree, has seen a 50 percent acceleration in growth over the past 50 years due to increased CO2 levels.

Trees are necessary climate regulators since they process carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Humans process oxygen and give off carbon dioxide, working harmoniously with natural plant life to maintain proper atmospheric composition. Since natural forests represent about 30 percent of the earth’s surface, they are highly effective at segregating greenhouse gases.

For many a tree, the first response to the increase of carbon dioxide levels in the air is an increase in photosynthesis. More carbon dioxide, CO2, in the air means more sugar can be made by photosynthesis. Making more sugar pushes the tree into a growth spurt. Trunks and branches grow taller, longer, and thicker; new branches and leaves form; and roots send out more long, thin root strands covered with root hairs.

As more fossil fuels are burned than ever before, more CO2 is dumped into the air than ever before. The trees will respond with more photosynthesis and fresh growth more quickly than ever before.

Africa's tropical forests have stored huge amounts of carbon over the last four decades and become a critical sponge for greenhouse gases.

Long-term measurements taken across the continent's tropical belt showed that African forests absorb as much carbon dioxide as those in the Amazon.Tropical forests only account for seven-to-ten percent of the Earth's land area. But they hold up to half of the carbon locked inside the planet's terrestrial vegetation, giving them an outsized role in regulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Forests are carbon stores, and they are carbon dioxide sinks when they are increasing in density or area.Previous studies in South America have shown that Amazonian old-growth forests have absorbed, on average, an extra 620 kilogramme (1,364 pounds) of carbon per hectare (2.47 acres) per year. About 70-80 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide are fixed annually by terrestrial and aquatic photoautotrophs.
African tropical forests are providing important ecosystem services by storing carbon and being a carbon sink, thereby reducing the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2, the main driver of global warming.

If increasing carbon dioxide benefits trees. And trees absorb carbon, then why we are so worried about increasing carbon dioxide?

Worry is that with increasing carbon dioxide, forest cover is depleting many folds either due to forest fire or due to civilized human beings. The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious cooling band around the Earth's equator, is now being recognized as one of the main causes of climate change.

So if we have to fight global warming and increasing carbon dioxide level we have to give space for more forest cover. We will have to protect growing trees which are the major consumers of carbon dioxide. Slogan like “MORE TREES, MORE OXYGEN AND LESS CARBON DIOXIDE” is more relevant in present scenario.

Reference:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/more-co2-in-the-atmosphere-leads-to-accelerated-growth-of-certain-tree-species.htm
http://www.vforteachers.com/increased_carbondioxide_and_trees.htm
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=119015

Plant more trees to reduce carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide on the rise.

by

Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi
Carbon is found in all living things –plants, animals, and humans- and nearly everywhere on the Earth. It is found in the atmosphere in the gas carbon dioxide, and dissolved in water in oceans and lakes. It is also found in soil, fossil fuels stored deep in ground, certain types of rocks, and in the shells of animals.

The carbon cycle is a complex cycle that circulates carbon between plants, animals and soils. The exchange of carbon between living and non-living things is very closely balanced. About 100 gigatonnes of carbon is captured by plants and oceans each year and about the same amount is released back into the environment. But this natural balance is disturbed by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation. Burning fossil fuels releases more carbon dioxide into the air. Deforestation or thin forest cover on the other hand, results in less carbon being removed from the atmosphere. It is clear from the pictures below where more carbon concentration (in Red colour) is seen in the atmosphere on the areas (Northern Hemisphere) where the forest cover is thin as compared to southern hemisphere where forest covers are sufficient. Green plants are known as carbon sinks. This means that they remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it.

Fig. 1. [Picture showing the forest cover on our Earth in green colours]
source: NASA's Terra satellite.

Fig.2. [Red colour is the concentration of carbon dioxide. Concentration of CO2 is high where forest cover is thin.]

An international team of scientists, including researchers from CIFOR, have discovered that rainforest trees are getting bigger, storing more carbon from the atmosphere and slowing climate change.

According to the findings, tropical trees in undisturbed forests around the world are absorbing nearly a fifth of the carbon-dioxide (C02) released by burning fossil fuels. That is significantly more than the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the world’s transport sector.

The researchers estimate that remaining tropical forests remove a massive 4.8 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere each year. This includes a previously unknown carbon sink in Africa, mopping up 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 each year.

Published on February 19 in Nature, the 40-year study of African tropical forests, which account for one third of the world’s total tropical forest, shows that over decades each hectare of intact African forest has trapped an extra 0.6 tonnes of carbon per year.

Over the past 140 years, forest clearing and fossil-fuel burning have pushed up the atmosphere’s CO2 level by nearly 100 parts per million. The average surface temperature of the Northern Hemisphere has mirrored the rise in CO2. the 1990s was the warmest decade since the mid- 1800s, and 1998 the warmest year.

While all living plant matter absorbs CO2 as part of photosynthesis, trees process significantly more than smaller plants due to their large size and extensive root structures. In essence, trees, as kings of the plant world, have much more “woody biomass” to store CO2 than smaller plants, and as a result are considered nature’s most efficient “carbon sinks.”
According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), tree species that grow quickly and live long are ideal carbon sinks.

Forests are carbon stores, and they are carbon dioxide sinks when they are increasing in density or area.

As the human population increases, forests are cleared for land and to provide firewood and timber to build houses. Today, almost all of the forests in Europe and North America have been cleared. The forests that remain are mostly in tropical areas like the Amazon region of Brazil and Southeast Asia.

The terrifying fact is that tropical forests are also being destroyed across the planet at accelerating rates. Current estimates indicate that as much as 17 million hectares of tropical forests are being destroyed each year, with up to six million hectares alone of that destruction taking place in the Brazilian Amazon. Saranda forest (one of the biggest forest area of Asia} of Jharkhand State of Eastern India is also being destroyed due illegal iron ore mining which is rampant in the area.

These forests are disappearing at an alarming rate. Data obtained from satellites show that the rate of destruction in these places has increased to between 64,000 square kilometres and 204,000 square kilometres. Scientists estimate that by 2030, 80 percent of the world’s forest will be lost forever. As wood decomposes or is burned for fuel, the carbon stored in trees goes back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. According to the scientists, deforestation accounts for about 20 per cent of the increase in the release of human related carbon dioxide since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

In the mid-1700s, people began to invent machines to help them do work. Like vehicles today, these machines burned fossil fuels for energy, which released green house gases into the atmosphere. More and more machines were built and used. In less than 200 years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased from 280 parts per million to 360 parts per million. This means that if we divided a sample of air into a million parts, 360 of those parts would be carbon dioxide.

Forest scientists have come to a surprising conclusion regarding old growth forests and their majestic, mature trees: They’re not just relaxing in their arboreal old age, but are still actively taking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The new study suggests that protecting old growth forests may be just as important as planting new trees in efforts to reduce carbon dioxide levels and fight global warming.

Previously, researchers believed that only young, fast-growing trees absorbed enough carbon dioxide to be considered significant “carbon sinks.” Old, crowded forests don’t allow for much new growth: The only new growth occurred in the small spaces that opened up when large old trees died and decomposed, releasing their accumulated carbon. The forests at large were therefore considered to be carbon neutral, and accounted as such in climate models [Nature News]. But the new study shows that the slow but continuous growth of old trees means that they continue to suck up more carbon than they release. These forests need to be protected not just because they help to absorb carbon dioxide, but also because destroying them could release huge stores of greenhouse gases.
Already we have pumped out enough greenhouse gases to warm the planet for many decades to come. We have created the environment in which our children and grandchildren are going to leave.

Sources:

Bunyard, P.,1999. Eradicating the Amazon rainforests will wreak havoc on climate. The Ecologist. Volume.29, no.2.

National Geographic Magazine, September,2004.

Our Warming Planet, 2004. Times Editions, Singapore.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/09/11/want-to-capture-carbon-protect-old-trees/

Did warming helped water to vanish from Mars?

Will our Earth will look same as Mars in future?

by

Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi

When I began studying Environmental Geology, I was told that the depletion of water, global warming crisis are going to be the most important issues the planet Earth would have to face in coming decades or centuries.
The political pundits were not impressed. After years of neglect, global warming and water depletion have suddenly become matters of wide spread international concern. Water is depleting, desert is expanding and lots more.

You must be now thinking that why I am writing on such issues which is related to Earth and not to Mars. Answer is below.

According to latest concept it is now clear that Mars once definitely supported a watery environment. It is clear from the pictures that Mars is covered with features that are best explained by the movement of water, either in catastrophic floods or the slow movement of groundwater.

If the water really existed on the Mars, which is now proved by different pictures, then where all the waters vanished? Was it the effect of warming or climate change which helped the water to escape from atmosphere? Our Earth is also passing through the same phase. If all the water from our atmosphere escapes, will our Earth will look same as Mars, devoid of water and life.

My concern is hidden in the present environmental condition of the Mars which is now devoid of water and life. Is our Earth is going to become desert like that of Mars in coming centuries.
Many of you must be thinking that my theory is merely hypothetical and nothing like this is going to happen to Earth. Future of Earth can never be Mars

It may be speculations but we must have to think seriously to save our planet for our coming generations. Really what happened to the water on Mars no body knows.

Evidences of ancient water on Mars:

Photo credits: NASA

It’s dustier than the road to death, colder than the devil’s kiss. Like much of Mars, the butter scotch plain is inhospitable, empty, ancient and dull.

Mars has always exerted a powerful attraction for people on Earth. Every two years it disappears, to stage a spectacular reappearance some time later as a fiery red object in the sky. Its blood-red color has inspired terror and war. In Hindu mythology this planet governs the health and carrier of humans.

It was only after the theoretical work Copernicus at the end of 15th century, and the observations Galileo at the beginning of the 17th, that Mars became just another world.
The quest for water on Mars has motivated many geologists and astronomers. The space probes have shown definitively that the amount of water vapor in the Martian atmosphere is only 0.003%. If it were to be condensed, it would form a layer on the surface with a thickness of just one-tenth of a millimeter.
The atmospheric composition is 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, and only 0.1% oxygen: utterly unsuitable for any animal life.

Despite their disappointment, astronomers have not been discouraged. There was considerable surprise when the Viking Orbiters that had accompanied the Landers to Mars revealed other Martian landscapes. These Orbiters took 51,000 photographs of the surface, some of which had a resolution of as little as 10m. The photographs, distributed in the form of magnetic tapes to the principal research institutes around the world, have enabled us to study the whole of the Martian globe. Its general appearance is that of a inanimate, cold, desert world. But there are some notable features, including volcanoes, one of which, Olympus Mons, with a base 700 km across and a height of 27000 m, is the largest in the whole solar system. There are enormous impact basins, such as Argyre, which is 600 km in diameter and 1000 m deep.

Above all, however, the great surprise was the dried-up river-beds, some as much as 15 km wide, and whose discharge must have been 1000 times that of the Amazon, our greatest river! If liquid water existed on Mars in such quantity, would there not have been a denser atmosphere, which would imply a far more temperate climate, perhaps favorable to the spontaneous appearance of life?

In previous centuries, astronomers thought that the dark areas they saw on Mars through their telescopes might be seas, and, at the end of the 19th century there was much speculation, led by Percical Lowell, about the possibility of Martian canals. By the the early decades of this century, however, it had become clear, because of the very low atmospheric pressure, that little or no surface water could exist on the Red Planet today. In 1969, Mariner 9 provided the first strong evidence that liquid water had flowed on the surface of Mars in the remote past. Among the thousands of images it sent back from orbit were those of flat-floored channels with eroded banks, sand bars and teardrop-shaped islands, channels with second- and third-order tributary systems, and braided channels which, had they been encountered on Earth, would unhesitatingly have been attributed to episodic flooding. Later probes have added to the evidence of water-carved channels and other features on Mars. The fact that Mars had flowing water implies that conditions on the planet were once very different than they are today. Yet, curiously, there are no signs that it ever rained on the fourth planet. The water-carved systems on Mars are short and stubby, dividing little upstream, and ending abruptly as if the water had suddenly appeared at that spot rather than having fallen over a large area and become collected. The assumption is that the Martian water erupted from beneath the surface, welling up as a result of volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts, and then flooded to form channels, and lakes, and perhaps even seas. Seeing the large amounts of fossilized evidences of the ancient water flow, it can also be assumed that water flowed in this red planet in the remote past and gradually vanished from the planet either due to global warming, which our Earth is facing today, or due to some other factors like geological or climate change.

How much liquid water existed on Mars in the past, and when? Does liquid water exist on Mars today? These are questions that fascinate scientists, especially astrobiologists, because they have a direct bearing on whether there was once life on Mars and, if so, whether it has survived to the present day. For this we have to search for fossils. The biological exploration of Mars is based on the idea that life appeared on that planet four billion years ago. Subsequently, it either disappeared 3.8 billion years ago (which is why we need to search for fossils), or else adapted to current conditions.

A large lake in the southern highlands of Mars is thought to have overflowed about 3.5 billion years ago, gouging out canyon as the torrent headed north and then spilled into the crater, forming a new lake. More evidences of catastrophic floods indicate ancient water flow on the surface of the red planet.

Images taken by Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) have provided some of the best evidence yet that water still occasionally flows on the Martian surface. Two gullies on the inside of craters, which were originally photographed by MGS in 1999 and 2001, and imaged again in 2004 and 2005, showed changes consistent with water flowing down the crater walls,

Other scientists, however, have challenged this explanation, pointing out that the gullies, and many others like them discovered by MGS, could have been caused not by water but by liquid carbon dioxide. The atmosphere of Mars is so thin and the temperature so cold that liquid water couldn't persist at the surface but would rapidly evaporate or freeze. Liquid carbon dioxide, on the other hand, has a lower freezing point (-56.6°C) and could stay liquid on the surface longer.

Striking new images of the Red Planet have raised hopes life could be found on Mars after all.

Scientists say they have photographic evidence that suggests liquid water may have been on the planet as little as five years ago.

In some of the pictures released by NASA, structures resembling to deltas formed on our Earth adds more evidence of water flow in past.

Whatever may be the truth, but it is now sure that there are ample of evidences that water did existed on this planet. According to the recent theories there are some fresh evidences of water flow. To me these are the ancient waters which were trapped in the remote past beneath the surface and which flow out from time to time carving latest flow structures on the upper surface of the red planet.

Where all the water went is an important question to scientists piecing together the planet’s geologic history. Perhaps some water seeped into the ground and froze, wound up in polar ice, or was lost from the atmosphere, but scientists can’t account for all of it.
Today, based on our observations from orbit, Mars appears to be very dry. There is little water in the atmosphere and only a small amount of water ice in evidence on the surface. Yet the planet is covered with features that are best explained by the movement of water, either in catastrophic floods or the slow movement of groundwater. Whether that water was present early in the history of Mars and was lost to space over eons, or is still present in great underground deposits of ice and groundwater, is a question whose answer must be left for the future exploration of Mars.

Sources:
National Geographic Magazine, Jan. 2004. Mars, Is there life in the ancient ice?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-420833/Does-water-STILL-flow-Mars.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/12/03/marschances.water/index.html
http://www.msss.com/http/ps/channels/channels.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Mars