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Posted by Tim Williams on July 26, 2008, 4:19 am
> I've not checked your numbers, but don't forget marine creatures.
> Cyanobacteria--/prochlorococcus/ is a major one--are responsible
> for perhaps half of all photosynthesis on Earth.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prochlorococcus
Hey, I like the looks of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
Tim
--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms
Posted by bw on July 25, 2008, 3:02 am
>> You missed a decimal somewhere.
>> Atmosphere (minus water) weighs 10,300,000 grams per square meter
>> So 1 ATM x .00038 = 3900 grams CO2
> You missed a decimal somewhere.
> 1 atm ~= 1 bar ~= 10^5 Pa = 100 000 kg/m^2 = 100 000 000 g/m^2
Wrong
Pascal is a Newton per square meter. 9.8 Newtons per kg.
101325 Newtons per square meter divided by 9.8 = 10339 kg = 10339000 grams
> So unless I'm missing something, it's actually 38 kg/m^2 in the atmosphere
> (which is not only the weight but simply the partial pressure of that
> gas).
> Pulling figures out of Google's ass, forest is ballpark 10-70 t/acre, or
> 2.2-15 kg/m^2, most of which is carbohydrates. So by pressure, there's a
> good bit more CO2 than forest over the Earth.
Thats just the tress in a temperate forest. Tropical rainforest biomass is
much higher than 15 kg per square meter.
> http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Forest/2006.htm says we have 3,952
> megahectares of forest (and falling slowly), which is about 7.7% of the
> Earth's area.
> So to reduce CO2 to preindustrial levels, we'd have to triple the amount
> of forests. Even covering the continential United States (982
> megahectares) would hardly make a dent, which seems kind of suspicious to
> me as rainforest destruction in South America and Africa is blamed for at
> least a little CO2 I think.
> Assuming these orders of magnitude are correct, it looks like evil nasty
> coal and oil are best left where they were. Once you let them out,
> they're not particularly easy to put back down there!
Earth biological feedback controls atmospheric composition. Plant biomass
exceeds animal biomass by 10:1, and Photosynthesis supports all biomass,
except deep ocean thermal bacteria.
Grass C4 pathways evolved due to CO2 starvation, generally the earth is CO2
starved from that point of view.
There is absolutely no reason to reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels, it
would just cause a new ice age.
Posted by Don Klipstein on July 26, 2008, 12:30 am
>>> You missed a decimal somewhere.
>>> Atmosphere (minus water) weighs 10,300,000 grams per square meter
>>> So 1 ATM x .00038 = 3900 grams CO2
>>
>> You missed a decimal somewhere.
>>
>> 1 atm ~= 1 bar ~= 10^5 Pa = 100 000 kg/m^2 = 100 000 000 g/m^2
>Wrong
>Pascal is a Newton per square meter. 9.8 Newtons per kg.
>101325 Newtons per square meter divided by 9.8 = 10339 kg = 10339000 grams
>> So unless I'm missing something, it's actually 38 kg/m^2 in the atmosphere
>> (which is not only the weight but simply the partial pressure of that
>> gas).
>>
>> Pulling figures out of Google's ass, forest is ballpark 10-70 t/acre, or
>> 2.2-15 kg/m^2, most of which is carbohydrates. So by pressure, there's a
>> good bit more CO2 than forest over the Earth.
>Thats just the tress in a temperate forest. Tropical rainforest biomass is
>much higher than 15 kg per square meter.
I would think that the biomass champs of forests are temperate ones,
since they often have dead leaves, conifer needles, fallen deadwood, etc.
on the ground and some biomass in the soil. Tropical rainforests tend to
have any dead biomass on or in the ground quickly eaten up - the soil in
tropical rainforests is actually constantly being maintained
mostly-sucked-barren of nutrient matter.
- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)
Posted by Eeyore on July 26, 2008, 11:51 am
Don Klipstein wrote:
> Tropical rainforests tend to
> have any dead biomass on or in the ground quickly eaten up - the soil in
> tropical rainforests is actually constantly being maintained
> mostly-sucked-barren of nutrient matter.
So tropical rainforests aren't especially effective 'carbon sinks' then ?
Graham
Posted by Don Klipstein on July 27, 2008, 12:22 am
>Don Klipstein wrote:
>> Tropical rainforests tend to
>> have any dead biomass on or in the ground quickly eaten up - the soil in
>> tropical rainforests is actually constantly being maintained
>> mostly-sucked-barren of nutrient matter.
>So tropical rainforests aren't especially effective 'carbon sinks' then ?
Steady-state forests are carbon-neutral whether tropical or not.
Forests that are exporting or sequestering biomass (such as ones used
for farming lumber but being maintained) are carbon sinks.
Burning down a forest is a 1-time carbon source, and planting one where
there was not one is a 1-time carbon sink.
- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)
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> Cyanobacteria--/prochlorococcus/ is a major one--are responsible
> for perhaps half of all photosynthesis on Earth.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prochlorococcus