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Apocalypse4Real

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Global Forest Watch
« on: February 24, 2014, 05:35:22 AM »
The World Resource Institute, Google and other partners have just put up an interactive mapping site that tracks deforestation and reforestation from 2000-2013. It is a great site.

Here is my blog intro to this new resource and potential impact on CO2 and CH4 tracking.

http://a4rglobalmethanetracking.blogspot.com/

With a potential El Nino on the way, it will change the CO2 and CH4 pattern we have had for the last three years.

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2014, 09:23:51 AM »
Carbon loss from tropical forests 'underestimated'
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27506349

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2014, 04:20:52 PM »

Laurent

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Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2014, 12:33:12 PM »
The Philippines: where 'megadiversity' meets mega deforestation
http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0731-gfrn-panela-philippines.html

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2014, 10:00:41 AM »
Europe's forests 'particularly vulnerable' to rapid climate change
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/05/europes-forests-particularly-vulnerable-to-rapid-climate-change

NASA: Forest loss leaps in Bolivia, Mekong region
http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0808-glofdas_q2_2014.html
« Last Edit: August 17, 2014, 10:06:32 AM by Laurent »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2014, 07:39:56 PM »
Nothing else left to log: are eco-certified timber companies stripping Russia of its last old growth forests?
http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0815-gfrn-dasgupta-russia-greenpeace-fsc.html

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #7 on: August 23, 2014, 07:40:57 PM »
'Natural Reserves' no more: illegal colonists deforest huge portions of Nicaraguan protected areas
http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0813-gfrn-watsa-silva-gorda.html

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #8 on: August 23, 2014, 07:41:56 PM »
China and Europe's outsourcing of soy production impacts the Amazon
http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0814-mato-grosso-soy-footprint.html

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #9 on: September 11, 2014, 08:47:02 AM »
Demand for agricultural products drives 'shock' tree loss in tropical forests
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29144568

Amazon rainforest destruction in Brazil rises again
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-29151977

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #10 on: September 19, 2014, 07:21:04 PM »
Time is right for global focus on forest land rights
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29254051

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #11 on: October 01, 2014, 09:59:48 AM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #12 on: October 02, 2014, 06:19:49 PM »
Forests are emerging out from the shadow of fossil fuels in climate debate
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/02/forests-fossil-fuels-climate-debate

Quote
We need governments to make big decisions to steer humanity to operate within planetary boundaries. Action at that level can reallocate resources from destructive to constructive activities, and globally from those with more than enough to those who have too little.

But something else governments have to do is give power to communities who can make things happen at the ground level, and recognise their role in finding solutions to seemingly intractable problems. That might be making renewable energy a success in Britain or, in this case, finding a way for humanity as a whole to live with, rather than cut down, forests that are intrinsically valuable, vital for local livelihoods and, in an age of climatic upheaval, something upon which we all depend for our collective survival.

jbg

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #13 on: October 02, 2014, 06:57:20 PM »
Forests are emerging out from the shadow of fossil fuels in climate debate
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/02/forests-fossil-fuels-climate-debate

Quote
We need governments to make big decisions to steer humanity to operate within planetary boundaries. Action at that level can reallocate resources from destructive to constructive activities, and globally from those with more than enough to those who have too little.

But something else governments have to do is give power to communities who can make things happen at the ground level, and recognise their role in finding solutions to seemingly intractable problems. That might be making renewable energy a success in Britain or, in this case, finding a way for humanity as a whole to live with, rather than cut down, forests that are intrinsically valuable, vital for local livelihoods and, in an age of climatic upheaval, something upon which we all depend for our collective survival.
Couldn't be soon enough. I think deforestation is a serious environmental degradation problem.

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2014, 09:39:06 AM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #15 on: October 17, 2014, 06:48:50 PM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #16 on: October 17, 2014, 07:03:51 PM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #17 on: October 19, 2014, 10:28:54 PM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #18 on: November 01, 2014, 09:16:03 AM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #19 on: November 18, 2014, 10:30:39 AM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #20 on: November 25, 2014, 11:36:00 AM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #21 on: November 27, 2014, 04:46:03 PM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #22 on: December 15, 2014, 08:40:10 PM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #23 on: December 16, 2014, 11:05:13 AM »
Amazon peatlands are 'most carbon-dense ecosystem'
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30448519

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #24 on: December 19, 2014, 10:08:02 PM »

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #25 on: December 24, 2014, 10:17:39 AM »

bligh8

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #26 on: December 28, 2014, 01:32:50 PM »
Russian boreal forests undergoing vegetation change....and warming

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110325022352.htm

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #27 on: January 20, 2015, 10:21:56 AM »
Traditional farming technique preserves soil, forest in Kalimantan
http://news.mongabay.com/2015/0106-gfrn-bell-fachrizal-kalimantan-farming-preserves-forest.html

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #28 on: February 25, 2015, 12:32:37 PM »

KeithAnt

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #29 on: February 26, 2015, 11:43:56 AM »
Heat stress on gum trees is not expected in an Australian State noted for its temperate climate.

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-26/ginger-tree-syndrome/6263118

Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #30 on: February 27, 2015, 01:34:35 PM »
Rainforest Destruction Isn’t Getting Better, It’s Getting Worse
http://www.vocativ.com/culture/science/rainforest-deforestation/

Steven

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #31 on: February 28, 2015, 07:04:32 PM »
How Sahara Dust Sustains the Amazon Rainforest, in 3-D
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sahara-dust-amazon-rainforest-nasa-18708



AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #32 on: March 03, 2015, 05:32:42 PM »
The linked article points to research indicating that not only will continued deforestation (say to provide farmland to provide high-quality food for the world's middle class that is projected to double by 2030) increase CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere, but it could shift India's monsoon rains southward, causing extreme distresses to a large fraction of the world's population very quickly:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/deforestation-could-shift-monsoons-leaving-india-high-and-dry-study-finds-20150302-13t9cp.html

Extract: "Large-scale deforestation could cause monsoon rains to shift south, cutting rainfall in India by nearly a fifth, scientists say.
Deforestation has long been known to cause temperature increases in local areas, but new research published on Tuesday shows a potentially wider impact on monsoon rains.
While releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, deforestation also causes changes in how much light reflects off the earth's surface and the amount of moisture in the atmosphere from plants transpiring."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #33 on: March 03, 2015, 05:48:12 PM »
The linked article indicates that India's new budget has little money for environmental protection and especially little funding to protect India's forests (& my prior post [Reply #32] shows that such deforestation could well shift the monsoon rains southward, which could cause food shortages in India)

http://www.rtcc.org/2015/03/03/modi-budget-sends-mixed-messages-on-indias-climate-commitment/


Extract: "Environmentalists in India have dubbed the Narendra Modi-government’s maiden budget “destruction-oriented” after it slashed funding for environmental protection.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley truncated allocation to the ministry of environment forests and climate change from Rs 2,043 crore (US $378 million) in 2014-15 to Rs 1,681 crore ($300m).
The government also declined to fund new climate change adaptation measures, despite recent disasters in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir linked to heavy rains and deforestation, which led to catastrophic flooding and heavy loss of life.
Environmental activist Subhas Datta, who wants to launch a Green party in India, said the lack of budget for forests showed how little concern the administration had for environmental protection.
“Forests account for 23% of the country’s geographical area. Instead of increasing allocation for afforestation to achieve the 33% green cover goal in the country, they have allocated only 1% (Rs 140 crore) of the total budget for the cause,” he said."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #34 on: March 05, 2015, 10:35:33 AM »
Per the linked article: "NASA has a plan to take the most detailed scans of the world’s forests ever".  This is a serious topic as there is evidence that the increasingly intense ENSO cycle will change the tropical rainforests of the world from a carbon sink to a carbon source (and this question needs to be better understood):

http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-gedi-will-image-the-worlds-forests-in-3d-2015-3

Extract: "To better understand how big a role trees play in this carbon cycle, NASA has recently granted a spot aboard the International Space Station to an instrument to measure the carbon in Earth's forests.
The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation lidar, or GEDI (pronounced "Jedi", à la Star Wars) will determine the total volume of trees on Earth, and analyze how that figure might have changed over time."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #35 on: March 06, 2015, 08:40:32 AM »
The linked article indicates that the mainstream GCM forecasts only project a 15% reduction in rainfall over the Amazon, but the "biotic pump" theory indicates that the Amazon basin could be transformed into a desert with continued anthropogenic radiative forcing:

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2776099/without_its_rainforest_the_amazon_will_turn_to_desert.html

Extract: "Mainstream climatologists predict a 15% fall in rainfall over the Amazon if it is stripped of its rainforest. But the 'biotic pump' theory, rooted in conventional physics and recently confirmed by experiment, shows that the interior of a forest-free Amazon will be as dry as the Negev desert. We must save the Amazon before it enters a permanent and irreversible desiccation.
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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sidd

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #36 on: March 06, 2015, 07:38:12 PM »
The biotic pump theory is ... not very well supported. (I had stronger words im mind, but I'm feeling kind this afternoon)

AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #37 on: March 07, 2015, 02:05:15 AM »
The biotic pump theory is ... not very well supported. (I had stronger words im mind, but I'm feeling kind this afternoon)

sidd,

Thanks for the heads-up.  As do not know much about atmospheric dynamics, I cannot say whether the biotic pump theory has even partial merit, or not.  Therefore, I will only provide this following link to a peer reviewed paper on this topic:

Makarieva, A. M., Gorshkov, V. G., Sheil, D., Nobre, A. D., and Li, B.-L.: Where do winds come from? A new theory on how water vapor condensation influences atmospheric pressure and dynamics, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 1039-1056, doi:10.5194/acp-13-1039-2013, 2013.


http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039-2013.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039-2013.pdf


Abstract. "Phase transitions of atmospheric water play a ubiquitous role in the Earth's climate system, but their direct impact on atmospheric dynamics has escaped wide attention. Here we examine and advance a theory as to how condensation influences atmospheric pressure through the mass removal of water from the gas phase with a simultaneous account of the latent heat release. Building from fundamental physical principles we show that condensation is associated with a decline in air pressure in the lower atmosphere. This decline occurs up to a certain height, which ranges from 3 to 4 km for surface temperatures from 10 to 30 °C. We then estimate the horizontal pressure differences associated with water vapor condensation and find that these are comparable in magnitude with the pressure differences driving observed circulation patterns. The water vapor delivered to the atmosphere via evaporation represents a store of potential energy available to accelerate air and thus drive winds. Our estimates suggest that the global mean power at which this potential energy is released by condensation is around one per cent of the global solar power – this is similar to the known stationary dissipative power of general atmospheric circulation. We conclude that condensation and evaporation merit attention as major, if previously overlooked, factors in driving atmospheric dynamics."

Best,
ASLR
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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Laurent

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #38 on: March 08, 2015, 10:20:18 AM »

AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #39 on: March 08, 2015, 11:20:12 AM »
The linked article provides a good overview of the topic of deforestation, and indicates that in the opinion of climate scientists, deforestation (with its net carbon and water vapor emissions) is the biggest concern for the climate system:


http://www.livescience.com/27692-deforestation.html


Extract (with bold text by me for emphasis): "Deforestation is the second largest anthropogenic (human-caused) source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, ranging between 6 percent and 17 percent. (Van Der Werf, G. R. et al., 2009)

Carbon isn't the only greenhouse gas that is affected by deforestation. Water vapor is also considered a greenhouse gas. "The impact of deforestation on the exchange of water vapor and carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the terrestrial land surface is the biggest concern with regard to the climate system," said Daley. Changes in their atmospheric concentration will have a direct effect on climate.

Deforestation has decreased global vapor flows from land by 4 percent, according to a study published by the National Academy of Sciences. Even this slight change in vapor flows can disrupt natural weather patterns and change current climate models."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #40 on: March 11, 2015, 10:21:22 PM »
The linked article indicates that projected increases in frequency & intensity of local droughts in the Amazon Basin could result in a strong positive feedback mechanism (see extract) in coming decades with continued global warming:

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/drought-amazon-carbon-capture-18733


Extract: "Without the Amazon, the impacts of climate change would likely be far worse. The forest sequesters about a quarter of all human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, stashing them in plants and soils. But a warmer, drier future could reduce its ability to store carbon and could turn it into a source of CO2 emissions as trees die and release the carbon they stored."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Lewis C

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #41 on: March 17, 2015, 04:06:23 PM »
I'm having difficulty finding any paper giving a credible account of the Amazon's widely reported sequestration of ~2.5GtC /yr. If anyone can post a link I'd be grateful.

At issue is not whether the forest could produce that much new carbon each year but where it is accumulating.
- It is not being floated off down the rivers since the volume, around 5.0Gt Wood, would make them impassable to boats.
- If reports of a steady-state topsoil of an avereage 1ft depth are correct then it is not being converted into soil - and if it were, then over the forest's 60Myr lifespan even a minute annual increment would have built an astonishing soil depth by now.
- Weathering of rock must play some role but given that plants, vines and trees will occupy every feasible space that is neither too sheer or too well swept by river waters, it can only occur on a tiny fraction of the overall area.
- The addition of ~5.0Gts of wood per year on an area of ~7.0Mkms2 would imply an addition of 7.14TsWood per hectare per year - which is plainly untenable over time. Apart from balance issues the canopy would get so thick that young trees and the understory species would be killed off by lack of light.

Am puzzled. Better information welcome.

Regards,

Lewis
« Last Edit: March 17, 2015, 07:59:44 PM by Lewis C »

Bruce Steele

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #42 on: March 17, 2015, 05:47:12 PM »
Lewis, I think mister Kahn has either misinterpreted the paper or the paper itself is badly flawed.
Without reading anything more than the Climate Central piece I can't really tell but the Amazon sequestering 25% of all antCarbon is nonsense .  Atmosphere takes up ~ 50% the oceans 25% and the terrestrial sinks combined take up the remaining 25%. So for the claim that the Amazon  taking  up 25% of antCarbon to be true it would need to be the only terrestrial sink on the planet. I see mister Kahn did respond to your query at CC in the comment section but I think maybe he's in a bit over his head. I have seen similar mistakes in the past and if those serve as any example the error is with terrestrial verses total carbon. So dividing 2.5 Gt C by 4 will potentially get you the Amazon total, but I am guessing. The Amazon may take up 25% of the terrestrial sink.
 I remember a paper that tried to quantify DOC ( dissolved organic carbon ) delivered from South American rivers and they are very large sources of DOC delivered to the Atlantic. I will try to find the paper.     

AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #43 on: March 17, 2015, 07:05:32 PM »
The following provides some limited information about the Amazon:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter06_FINAL.pdf


Jeffrey Q. Chambers, Robinson I. Negron-Juarezb, Daniel Magnabosco Marrac, Alan Di Vittorioa, Joerg Tewse, Dar Roberts, Gabriel H. P. M. Ribeiroc, Susan E. Trumbored, and Niro Higuchic (2013), "The steady-state mosaic of disturbance and succession across an old-growth Central Amazon forest landscape", PNAS, 3949–3954, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1202894110

http://www.pnas.org/content/110/10/3949.abstract

Abstract: "Old-growth forest ecosystems comprise a mosaic of patches in different successional stages, with the fraction of the landscape in any particular state relatively constant over large temporal and spatial scales. The size distribution and return frequency of disturbance events, and subsequent recovery processes, determine to a large extent the spatial scale over which this old-growth steady state develops. Here, we characterize this mosaic for a Central Amazon forest by integrating field plot data, remote sensing disturbance probability distribution functions, and individual-based simulation modeling. Results demonstrate that a steady state of patches of varying successional age occurs over a relatively large spatial scale, with important implications for detecting temporal trends on plots that sample a small fraction of the landscape. Long highly significant stochastic runs averaging 1.0 Mg biomass⋅ha−1⋅y−1 were often punctuated by episodic disturbance events, resulting in a sawtooth time series of hectare-scale tree biomass. To maximize the detection of temporal trends for this Central Amazon site (e.g., driven by CO2 fertilization), plots larger than 10 ha would provide the greatest sensitivity. A model-based analysis of fractional mortality across all gap sizes demonstrated that 9.1–16.9% of tree mortality was missing from plot-based approaches, underscoring the need to combine plot and remote-sensing methods for estimating net landscape carbon balance. Old-growth tropical forests can exhibit complex large-scale structure driven by disturbance and recovery cycles, with ecosystem and community attributes of hectare-scale plots exhibiting continuous dynamic departures from a steady-state condition."

See also:

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/stop-deforestation/deforestation-global-warming-carbon-emissions.html#.VQhJT6Pn9Ms

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140318/ncomms4434/full/ncomms4434.html

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

Bruce Steele

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #44 on: March 17, 2015, 08:37:23 PM »

AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #45 on: March 18, 2015, 10:38:14 PM »
According to the linked New York Times article, in the 1990's the Amazon rainforest absorbed about 2 billion tons of CO₂ each year, but now absorbs less than 1 billion tons of CO₂ per year (see extract):


http://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-absorbs-less-carbon-dioxide-as-trees-die-off-study-says-1426701926


Extract: "Each year, human activity releases about 35 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. For the past few decades, about a quarter of those emissions have been absorbed by the oceans, while another quarter is taken up by trees and other terrestrial sources. The other half stays in the atmosphere and is believed to be the main driver of man-made climate change.

About half of the carbon sink on land consists of intact tropical forests. The Amazon, which is 15 times the size of California, is at least half of the global tropical forest. Its 300 hundred billion trees store one fifth of all carbon in the earth’s biomass.

In the 1990s, the Amazon absorbed an estimated two billion tons of CO2 each year. Compared with that peak level, the net carbon uptake has now halved, according to the study. For the first time, the Amazon absorbs less carbon than the one billion tons of CO2 emitted annually by the countries of South America."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #46 on: March 19, 2015, 04:49:21 PM »
As a follow-up to my last post about the Amazon Basin carbon sink/source, I offer the following references and associated image/caption:

Brienen, R.J.W et al. (2015), "Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink", Nature, doi:10.1038/nature14283

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14283.html

Abstract: "Atmospheric carbon dioxide records indicate that the land surface has acted as a strong global carbon sink over recent decades, with a substantial fraction of this sink probably located in the tropics, particularly in the Amazon. Nevertheless, it is unclear how the terrestrial carbon sink will evolve as climate and atmospheric composition continue to change. Here we analyse the historical evolution of the biomass dynamics of the Amazon rainforest over three decades using a distributed network of 321 plots. While this analysis confirms that Amazon forests have acted as a long-term net biomass sink, we find a long-term decreasing trend of carbon accumulation. Rates of net increase in above-ground biomass declined by one-third during the past decade compared to the 1990s. This is a consequence of growth rate increases levelling off recently, while biomass mortality persistently increased throughout, leading to a shortening of carbon residence times. Potential drivers for the mortality increase include greater climate variability, and feedbacks of faster growth on mortality, resulting in shortened tree longevity. The observed decline of the Amazon sink diverges markedly from the recent increase in terrestrial carbon uptake at the global scale, and is contrary to expectations based on models.


Hedin, L.O. (2015), "Signs of saturation in the tropical carbon sink", Nature,  doi:10.1038/519295a

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/519295a.html

Summary: "The carbon sink in the land biosphere has grown during the past 30 years, taking up much of the carbon dioxide produced by human activities. The first signs of this growth levelling off have been spotted in Amazon forests."


See also:

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/03/amazon-rainforest-is-taking-up-a-third-less-carbon-than-a-decade-ago/

Captions: "Top graph shows trend in biomass (i.e. the amount of carbon stored), middle graph shows trend in productivity (i.e. tree growth), and the bottom graph shows trend in biomass mortality (i.e. tree deaths). Data before 1990 (dotted black line) was from a small number of sites, so there is more variation in these years. Source: Brienen et al. (2015)"
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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #47 on: March 22, 2015, 03:50:05 AM »
The linked article indicates that while in general terms the rate of deforestation is decreasing globally; but the remaining forest degrading at a faster rate than before.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/deforestation-slowing-but-surviving-forests-are-breaking-down-18801

Extracts: "The amount of climate pollution being produced every year by the felling of forests is falling worldwide, but benefits of the heartening decline are being eroded by the worsening conditions of the forests still left standing.



The slowing of deforestation that underpinned the improvement masked worsening rates of forest degradation, though, which is estimated to be releasing about 1.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. From 2000 to 2010, forest degradation was responsible for a little less than half that amount each year.



“Deforestation” refers to the felling or razing of forests to make space for ranches, soy plantations and other uses of formerly forested land, said Francesco Tubiello, an FAO project coordinator who helped compile the numbers, which are provided to the U.N. by individual nations. “Degradation,” by contrast, happens when individual trees are chopped down, such as for firewood or to harvest valuable mahogany, or when wildfires or storms rage, or “basically anything that’s linked to unsustainable management.”"
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #48 on: March 22, 2015, 04:07:02 AM »
The linked reference indicates that large-scale deforestation, reforestation and afforestation can change precipitation in the monsoon regions of the world.  Therefore, this fact should be considered in all model projections and in Negative Emissions Technology, NET, planning

N. Devaraju, Govindasamy Bala, and Angshuman Modak (2015), "Effects of large-scale deforestation on precipitation in the monsoon regions: Remote versus local effects", PNAS, 3257–3262, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1423439112

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3257.abstract

Abstract: "In this paper, using idealized climate model simulations, we investigate the biogeophysical effects of large-scale deforestation on monsoon regions. We find that the remote forcing from large-scale deforestation in the northern middle and high latitudes shifts the Intertropical Convergence Zone southward. This results in a significant decrease in precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere monsoon regions (East Asia, North America, North Africa, and South Asia) and moderate precipitation increases in the Southern Hemisphere monsoon regions (South Africa, South America, and Australia). The magnitude of the monsoonal precipitation changes depends on the location of deforestation, with remote effects showing a larger influence than local effects. The South Asian Monsoon region is affected the most, with 18% decline in precipitation over India. Our results indicate that any comprehensive assessment of afforestation/reforestation as climate change mitigation strategies should carefully evaluate the remote effects on monsoonal precipitation alongside the large local impacts on temperatures."
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Re: Global Forest Watch
« Reply #49 on: March 23, 2015, 03:20:12 PM »
The linked Newsweek article reminds us that the Amazon rainforest is currently under growing threat of deforestation due to such factors as: road development, oil development, dam developments, corruption, and general economic and population pressure.  Furthermore, I note that: (a) 2015 could bring a major drought to the Amazon Basin due to a possible major El Nino event; and (b) as the Amazon rainforest creates much of its own rainfall we are approaching a tipping point where more forest loss will mean substantially more frequent droughts:

http://www.newsweek.com/brazils-deforestation-rates-are-rise-again-315648
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson