The World's Largest Environmental Experiment

Roland Piquepaille writes "The Amazon in South America is more than a forest or an habitat. It's a climate regulator which has to absorb between 200 and 300 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions produced by the 8,000 square miles of destroyed forests every year. In 1998, the Brazilian community, helped by many international institutions, launched the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment (LBA). The LBA Experiment is made up of 120 projects, 61 of which are already complete. The status of these projects is currently being reviewed by 800 delegates from 170 Brazilian and foreign institutions at the III LBA Scientific Conference held in Brasilia between July 27 and 29. NASA says it plays a key role in the LBA experiment through the use of its satellites and its computer scientists. But Inter Press Service reports that the Mega-Amazon Research Project Holds Surprises -- Good and Bad: good because it provides opportunities for 400 researchers to work on postgraduate studies in the area, bad because it's still not known if the forests absorb enough carbon to compensate the emissions caused by deforestation, therefore contributing to global warming. Please read this overview for more details, references and a map of the LBA sites spanning the Amazon."

Comments

Forests

[bartok]

I'm always amazed at the hypocrisy of north american countries when they denounce the deforestation in the south. It's not like we haven't been doing the exact same thing with our own forests.

This is a classic case of "Do like I say, not like I do".

Plankton

[kippy]

I was under the impression that the oceans are overwhelming larger carbon sinks than surface forests. Wasn't that part of the reason that carbon credit trading was scoffed at by some scientists?

Please correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that the sheer volume of the oceans supports the idea. Between the plant life filling that volume and the fact that the water itself dissolves a good deal of CO2, it seems like promoting artificial blooms of plankton and algae would sink a lot more carbon.

Re:Moo

[Bearpaw]

This makes me wonder. How can 800 delefgaters agree on anything?

Why would they all need to agree on anything? This being science, a rough consensus on tentative conclusions and furthur efforts needed would be the reasonable expectation.

Sure, their intentions may be right, but wouldn't a group of closer to five or may be ten people be better?

Five to ten people to review the status of 120 projects, conducted along a river that is over 6,000 km long and up to 10 km wide? (Of course, that's just the river itself. The relevant area is much bigger than that.) IANAEnvironmentalScientist, but I suspect that 800 reviewers is not too many.

Forests vs. tree farms

[Engineer-Poet]

I'm not sure you can draw a clean line between them. On the one extreme you have old-growth in places like Alaska, and on the other you have conifer or aspen pulpwood plantations. But how do you classify all the various national forests? Even a roadless area can be turned into clearcut, at least if certain interests have their way. Much of Maine is owned by private companies and managed for wood production, but it seems to have more of the characteristics of a forest.

People like to live among trees. How do you classify "urban forests"?

I wish it was easy, but it doesn't appear to be.

Not just iron

[Engineer-Poet]

The utility of iron fertilization to "solve" atmospheric CO2 issues is being questioned. Ask for support of all claims.

The carbon-uptake of N. American landmass may be due in large part to the adoption of zero-till farming; here is an article on it.

Half-truths and other nonsense

[prof_peabody]

I hate to say it, but most of the insightful comments here are only half true, and some of the answers provided only scratch the surface and miss ALL the important complications. I have spent years reading scientific literature on these topics, and the conversations here highlight 1) the complexity of the problem; 2) the quick/poorly thought out solutions offered; and 3) our lack of understanding of the Earth system.

Go read some more on ocean chemistry and biology folks...
I'd explain GEOCARB II, but I don't think most people want to hear anout the modelling side of things!