Nitrogen pollution drives trees to soak up more CO2

Isn't this interesting. I imagine green-thumb growers out there will be taking note of this. I wonder if there are any other ways to get trees to soak up more CO2? It says that younger trees soak up more CO2.



Soon there may be right-wing environmentalists chopping down and then fertilizing new forests when nobody is looking.



What other / better 'solutions' are there to CO2?

[edit on 13-6-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

I have heard that the only thing that Nitrogen does in the atmosphere is dilute other gasses. For example they dilute oxygen enough so that animals can breathe, because pure oxygen is toxic.

Although this may stimulate tree growth if the CO2 is diluted the same way that humans gain red blood cells when they are at altitude (less oxygen), meaning that they may grow larger to incorporate the dilution of the CO2.

The idea of fertilization sounds strange however, sounds like steroids to these new trees

It looks like the horror flick "Global Warming - The Signs and the Science" was wrong about their claim at time 31:30 that Nitrogen may cause vegetation to release their stored CO2.

Google Video Link

Can anyone confirm their theory that microbes under the ground feeding off of nitrogen could be releasing CO2??

EDIT: Here says CO2 is released into the soil:

As organic matter decomposes it releases CO2, water and nutrients into the soil. www.pals.iastate.edu...

So it would appear that they may have engaging in misnfo to say the least.

But here in the same paragraph they say it's up for debate, and then that it does release CO2 into the atmosphere:

"The debate is whether the enhanced litter decay rate from warming will also increase the release of carbon from ecosystems," said Parton. "When you increase litter decomposition rates, you are enhancing carbon dioxide release to the atmosphere."
www.physorg.com...

They also admit that decomposition releases notrogen. Assuming it all 'stays' in the soil, then the trees get to utilize the nitrogen. So therefore, when human nitrogen finds it's way into woodlands it's a major counterbalance to the G.W. 'doom machine'.

EDIT: Here they say that forest are CO2-'sinks, and that even grasslands appear to have the same property:

Scientists have long known that forests sometimes act as "carbon sinks," absorbing more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than they release. Now, a team of researchers has identified a mechanism through which grasslands appear to demonstrate the same property.
www.scienceblog.com...

I'd say that this new nitrogen data removes some hot air from the "Crisis" as Al Gore calls it.

I wonder what other natural elements manage CO2, and which of those aren't in the doom and gloom computer models?

[edit on 14-6-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Here is one of their smoking guns proving CO2 is warming the atmosphere. Too bad they put the Spectrum down on the bottom which actually shows the one they have marked as Ozone is correct the one they have marked CO2 is actually smack in the middle of H2O peak and CO2 absorbs nowhere near it.

www.atmosphere.mpg.de...

Originally posted by Gonjo
Here is one of their smoking guns proving CO2 is warming the atmosphere.

It's such a smoking gun that they hid it in a chart focusing on stratospheric longwave cooling, in a journal article about atmospheric cooling rates...