a) The carbon sequestration is continuous in the cold climate forests (both underground and fallen trees are conserved for a long time), e.g., in Syberia and Canada.

b) The underground carbon sequestration is continuous in all forests. It slowers after some life cycles of the trees. The decomposition of the wood is gradually slowers by the depth.

c) The above the ground carbon sequestration is continuous in all forests where the trees used to replace fossil energy or goods produced by using fossil energy (e.g., steel, concrete). Also, the wood used for durable products (buildings, furniture) ensures generations of forests to sequester and store carbon (in buildings and furniture). These are the renewable and carbon-neutral energy and material sources. If you manage your forests on a sustainable way, it stores the carbon for several hundred years. When you demolish or rid of furniture, you can use the energy (instead of fossil).

Only the above the ground wood left to rot in the forest in temperate and warmer climate is a not a continuously increasing (but still a stable) storage of carbon. It means that you have 500 t/ha standing tree and around 500 t/ha rotting wood stored carbon and a larger amount/ha underground stored. In a temperate or warmer climate, this won't increase after some generations of the lifetime of the trees (e.g. after 500 hundred years) but stored forever if you always grow a forest on the land. So, the carbon is stored for the eternity from the point the decomposition and the growing of the trees are in balance.

You can sequester and store carbon by afforestation and use the wood to replace fossil-based energy and materials.

a) The carbon sequestration is continuous in the cold climate forests (both underground and fallen trees are conserved for a long time), e.g., in Syberia and Canada.

b) The underground carbon sequestration is continuous in all forests. It slowers after some life cycles of the trees. The decomposition of the wood is gradually slowers by the depth.

c) The above the ground carbon sequestration is continuous in all forests where the trees used to replace fossil energy or goods produced by using fossil energy (e.g., steel, concrete). Also, the wood used for durable products (buildings, furniture) ensures generations of forests to sequester and store carbon (in buildings and furniture). These are the renewable and carbon-neutral energy and material sources. If you manage your forests on a sustainable way, it stores the carbon for several hundred years. When you demolish or rid of furniture, you can use the energy (instead of fossil).

Only the above the ground wood left to rot in the forest in temperate and warmer climate is a not a continuously increasing (but still a stable) storage of carbon. It means that you have 500 t/ha standing tree and around 500 t/ha rotting wood stored carbon and a larger amount/ha underground stored. In a temperate or warmer climate, this won't increase after some generations of the lifetime of the trees (e.g. after 500 hundred years) but stored forever if you always grow a forest on the land. So, the carbon is stored for the eternity from the point the decomposition and the growing of the trees are in balance.

You can sequester and store carbon by afforestation and use the wood to replace fossil-based energy and materials.

Definitely sea is the largest pool for carbon. But if someone consider a different aspect, lets consider the fact , a specific country that doesnt have sea but have forest or vegetation. So, for that case forest land use will contribute significantly in C-sequestration.

In addition to the comprehensive account above, on the land the current expansion of temperate forest (attached) at an annual rate of about 1% is used, for example in the carbon budget of Italy for UNFCCC reporting purposes. 

I would also be interested in a quantification of the carbon carbonate metabolism in the ocean (shells; coral reefs) as a component in the atmospheric carbon sequestration account.

Article Forecasting the pattern and pace of Fagus forest expansion i...

Article Carbon Stock of European Beech Forest; A Case at M. Pizzalto, Italy

Keeping forests as forests is preferred unless it does interfere with needed crop production or even solar power, etc but that is another issue.  Look at rain forests where so much C is stored and their harvest has led to increased atmospheric CO2.  Where I am forest aforestration on marginal crop lands does increase C sequestration as C goes into long term forest products and if harvested forests are then regenerated to forests immediately. We have relatively fast growing species.

Dear Keneth M Towe,

Following your advice, we must all burn and cut all the forest in the world, so there will be more space for solar and wind farms and all the CO2 released will be asumed by the atmosphere as it has always been...

In our region (Cantabria, Spain) 40% of the forest land has no trees, because it's managed by recurrent fires as it's in other points of southern Europe and Africa (at least). We don't need a huge amount of lands to avoid bad practices and to get renewable ressources. We know now how to manage lands to produce food enough and wood enogh in relatively small surfaces.

What will we do the cloudy and calm days? We won't use any energy... We should reduce the use of energy and the energy will be provided by different sources, not just wind and sun.

As we know that nature has their own heeling power and management strategy and forest is one of the most important tool of nature for carbon sequestration. Let me give you an example- we can see in any annual graph of the of CO2 concentration they have clear picture of up and down pattern. I think it happens because of the forest of Northern hemisphere. So, let's start the remediation of problem of nature by nature rules. 

I am not saying only forest can solve the all problem but there are several biological ways (through Algae production, soil carbon sequestration by adding the carbonized biomass material and of-course by developing sustainable technologies for industrial sector).  

There is no doubt it is, especially where there is afforestation of barren and degraded lands.

The forest is really contributing to a net carbon sequestration. Not only the growing trees but also the humus. We made a study covering the forested land of Sweden (boreal and temperate forest) and found a clear sequestration. In our study we focussed on just the organic layer. Adding the mineral soil would add to the values we present. I have attached a paper describing the study, which collected data for 41 years. In case you are interested of a discussion I give my e-mail address, [email protected]

Best regards

Björn Berg

Yes forests contribute to isolation

While forests certainly cause carbon sequestration, the growth of crops on cleared land results in gradual depletion of the organic carbon stored in the soil. The radiocarbon dates on soil organic carbon in undisturbed sites along the railway lines indicate an average age of the carbon of c. 6ka. Where crops are grown the organic carbon has decreased to under 50% in about 100 years, though new farming methods help. Glacial tills across the Prairies commonly have about 5% organic matter derived mainly from crushed tree trunks since they are mainly lignin.

When urban areas expand, cropland is replaced primarily by concrete and there is very limited replacement of the organic matter that slowly decomposes. In the tropics, copious amounts of organic matter can be accumulated in rain forests, but when this is cleared, the organic matter is greatly reduced, soil density increases resulting in increased runoff of precipitation and soil erosion. It is the topsoil with maximum organic matter that is washed away leaving a relatively impermeable subsoil at the surface. Plant growth is greatly reduced, so capture of carbon is limited, while oxidation of it increases. Thus destruction of tropical forests is particularly bad.

Stuart.

We can consider Yes. But all depends on relatively.

If not forestry, what else can be considered C sequestration ways, more

In my opinion, forest can capture the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but the capacity and potential of forest carbon sequestration depend on the site conditions, forest ages, forest types, management strategies, climate zone and so on.

The problem then is the exponential growth in the human population. Where do the extra people o, and where are we going to produce the necessary food for them? There is also the question of providing enough clean water for all our needs with a burgeoning population. These are questions the younger members of our population will have to deal with within their lifetime.

Stuart.

Unfortunately, the emphasis on controlling the numbers of people inhabiting the world is down-played by the politicians whose primary focus in many cases is trying to ensure that they get elected when the people go to the polls. They also like spending other peoples money to further their chances. Thus if the emphasis on the importance of rising carbon dioxide levels can be used to provide a reason for a carbon tax, what do they have to lose by using it to provide extra funds to spend? If it happens to help the carbon dioxide problem, that is nice, but if not, they have ensured themselves of extra funds to spend as they choose. In Alberta, part of the money is being used for green energy projects to justify the tax, but the Government is in dire need of additional funds to cover its excessive spending habits that are resulting in record deficits. It is unlikely that the politicians will want to give up this new source of revenue even if the science behind it is questionable.

Now the Federal government wants to add large numbers of immigrants to this country even though jobs are disappearihg in favour of robots and technological advances, and costs of living are increasing steadily. It is a cold climate for at least half of the year in the southern Canada, and solar power generation in the far north is impossible for several weeks in the height of winter when temperatures can be as low as -60 degrees Celsius for days on end. People add carbon dioxide to the surrounding atmosphere, and this increases with decreasing air temperatures as their bodies try to keep warm. They inevitably need more food that cannot be readily obtained in the north and is very expensive. Thus increasing populations is not a very sound way of dealing with the problem of increasing carbon dioxide.

If a carbon tax is needed, then there should be a financial payment when a child is born, refundable when they die. Similarly, there should be a financial penalty when trees are cut down, and the amount calculated on the environmental conditions governing how quickly the replacement tree takes to be able to sequester the same quantity of carbon dioxide as the tree that was removed. Industry should not be the only source of penalty revenue to fund alternative sources of energy.

However, lost in all the discussion is the fact that carbon dioxide is a minor cause of climate change. There are many substantiated other causes that can produce much larger changes in the temperature of the surface of the world. The well-known Milankovich cycles can produce a 10 degree Celsius shift if they happen to be in phase, and changes in ocean gateways connecting the main oceans can produce spectacular changes. Thus the collision of South America with North America between 2.9Ma and 2.4 Ma resulted in cutting off of the El Nina warm currents, preventing them from entering the Atlantic Ocean and keeping NorthWest Europe warm during the earlier Ice Ages. Again, changing distribution of air masses can have a spectacular effect on air temperatures in some locations, e.g., northern British Columbia. There the mean annual air temperature rose more than 5 degrees Celsius in ten years as the relative strengths of the warm continental air from the deserts around Arizona strengthened relative to the cold polar air masses coming from the North. These are discussed in a series of papers whose references are attached below.

Finally, it should be pointed out that energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed. Matter can only be transmuted to a limited extent under the present conditions at the surface of the earth, but energy can occur in many different forms. Since both the oceans and air can move freely in response to pressure and energy gradients, the heat energy they carry can move around from one place to another, producing the extremely unpredictable changes in both weather and climate. We are not able currently to predict these variations except over a few days, and cannot readily stop them. We do complicate the situation by altering the surface microenvironments and by bring up heat from within the Earth with oil and gas, which must then be added to the complex controls. Thus the oil and gas production in Prudhoe Bay and Russia have had a significant effect on the surrounding areas and the Arctic ice cover. Downwind, the periods of increasing mean annual air temperatures at Yakutsk are closely correlated to the amount of production in the Russian oil and gas field some hundreds of kilometers to the west.

References.

Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, v. 1(5): 381-403.

Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 2(5): 371-383.

Global Warming. Sciyo Publications, Rijeka, Croatia. 250p. (2013).

Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 5(3): 259-274.

Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 8(6): 451-460.

Stuart.

I agree, but this brings us back to the conclusion that we need to consider the carrying capacity of the Earth for human beings, and adjust our numbers and methods of handling the coming problems responsibly. When other biota became too prolific and exceed the carrying capacity for them, they suffered a population collapse caused by famine . Sometimes pestlilence , war or suicide were involved, but there are numerous examples in the geological literature of where a once numerous species suffered a population collapse, usually ending in extinction. Humans have survived enormous climatic changes in the past by being adaptable, but currently, the young people appear to expect technology to make life comfortable and overcome any problems. Imagine the changes needed to handle the commencement of a major glaciation. The question is whether future populations will be able to adapt to the numerous new upcoming problems as well as to adjust to the spectacular changes that climate change can produce. Humans need to work together more to solve the upcoming problems or there will be a major catastrophe ahead for at least many of this species.

Stuart.

The natural cycles are interrupted, since materials are often deposited or poisoning water, soil and air.

I see the problem that in working together worldwide, regions with different orientation are not respected and supported with their specific needs and their resources will suffer more.

Under the leadership of the industrial world all too often economic goals become predominant and needs of the population ( as education, better administration . .) are not considered adequately.

The pressure of the industrial world on nature is expanding, but the self-organizing suffering, as in Africa and gets little help.

Weaker economy reduces the emission of climate gases and lets trees grow ( as happened in Ukraina and elsewhere ).

Yes. its OK. Forestry and wood agriculture are important key to the atmospheric CO2 capture and carbon sequestration .

In addition to forestry, the patterns of tillage management in agricultural systems are also effective.

It should not be forgotten that atmospheric carbon dioxide enters plant tissues through the process of photosynthesis. CO2 become to carbon and remains, in stable form carbon in plants, especially perennials plant and trees. On the other hand, in forest systems, such as not doing tillage, then the carbon storage of the underground organs of trees and shrubs is also a reservoir for the storage of organic carbon.

Dear Professor Kenneth

Thank you for your scientific opinion. Yes due to the role of the agricultural sector and land use change in amount of total greenhouse gas emissions, if politicians take proportional management approaches in each sector, therefor in agricultural sector, we have to do with the principles of management, such as the creation of forests or wood agriculture, conservation tillage systems, low use of fossil fuels and dependence on clean energy sources, It can be important in this problem.

I don't agree withthe above. In forestry, wood products can last centuries. Even paper products in contemporary land fills will be sequestered for aa long time. In faxst growing planations, the biomass is rapidly replaced. Tap roots od harvested trees can decay slowly so emain sequestered even as the new forest grows

As per my opinion the capturing of C is one thing. But retaining it after gradual death and decay of that plant is another thing. In country like India the cutting of tree is totally banned and trees dead and decay naturally. So after getting mature the tree becomes the source of C instead of the sink of C. So again the same question.

Is really forestry is contributing in C-sequestration?

Wood is an important asset since time immemorial, nowadays there is scarcity of wood due to enormous population pressure and stringent law and regulations against felling of tree in India. Tree conservation is associated with multidimensional benefits but after attaining a physiological age (age of maturity) by the tree it starts natural decaying if the wood is not utilized properly in time. It is exiting fact that the natural decomposition of wood improves the fertility status and physical properties of soil but at the same time the increasing demand of wood need to be fulfilled. The demands of sustainable development rely on judicious use of resource like wood for mankind. This paper elucidates the significance of tree harvesting at maturity for better management of the forest resources over the natural death of tree provided the wood is used in such a way that carbon can be blocked in it for longer duration.

Dear Anil - It is a good question but do you have any tool at hand to measure the threshold value of C sequestration by the forestry? Quasi-equilibrium value of soil organic carbon under forestry is often reported but it would be nice to have such value by the forestry.

Dear Pal Sir, thank you for your encouragement and honestly speaking I haven't any appropriate tool for correct measuing the threshold value or rate of C-sequestration. It is only estimated on the basis of NPP of the forest via some allometric eqation-based and that also require a site-specific caliberation.

Tree conservation is associated with multi-dimensional benefits but after attaining a physiological age (age of maturity) by the tree it starts natural decaying if the wood is not utilized properly in time. It is exiting fact that the natural decomposition of wood improves the fertility status and physical properties of soil but at the same time the increasing demand of wood need to be fulfilled.

Article “Wood is Good”: A Way Forward for Climate Change Mitigation

Reforesting is supported by the state in Germany, but not of great interest for people, they prefer to invest in concret and buildings.

To diminish the further load of CO2 politics are scarce. What about "DIVEST", not to invest more in fossil fuels ( but in reforesting ) ?

About a million people from North Africa and Syria came to Germany, increasing the CO2 emissions of Germany more than a percent. If they had stayed in their home countries ( and likewise helped as after migration ), their load of CO2 would be diminished by about 70 % .

The emissions are depending heavily on the infrastructure of the resp. country, the worst countries are the industrialized ones.

There two ways managed plantations improves the fight against global warming: they increase the global C sequestration (this stock can be measured) and the products obtained from them replace other non-renewable products that generate global warming, like petrol. There is an international consensus about that and it's one of the few possibilities we've in our hands. Looking for fighting against global warming, forestry is probably the most efficient use of the land.

when a tree dies either naturaly of by harvest he below ground necromass just doesn't dissappear. We have have found with longleaf in the southeastern tern 60 US percnet of its tap root is remaining afterr 60. More in colder climates. Plus wood is used for lumber with a long lifespan. years

New evidences about how forests contribute to C-sequestration:

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/forests-climate-change-co2-greenhouse-gases-trillion-trees-global-warming-a8782071.html