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Science

The World's Largest Environmental Experiment 33

Posted by michael from the we're-all-guinea-pigs dept.
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."
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The World's Largest Environmental Experiment More

The World's Largest Environmental Experiment

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  • Moo (Score:2)

    by Chacham ( 981 ) *
    The status of these projects is currently being reviewed by 800 delegates from 170 Brazilian and foreign

    This makes me wonder. How can 800 delefgaters agree on anything? Sure, their intentions may be right, but wouldn't a group of closer to five or may be ten people be better?

    Perhaps, this ought to be interesting.
    • This makes me wonder. How can 800 delefgaters agree on anything?

      Mythical Man Month or Congressional Record? Either could lead you to this conclusion, so I'm curious.

    • Re:Moo (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Bearpaw ( 13080 )
      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

      • Re:Moo (Score:2)

        by Chacham ( 981 ) *
        This being science, a rough consensus on tentative conclusions and furthur efforts needed would be the reasonable expectation.

        The problem is that there ends up being 800 *separate* people. Ten people are more likely to come to a consensus, or at least see each other's points.
    • How can 800 delefgaters agree on anything?
      More importantly, is the rain forest, in its current state, able to absorb the prodigious amount of carbon dioxide produced by 800 delegates?
  • 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

    I would hope the amount of carbon absorbed was not known, otherwise there wouldn't be much need for the experiment.
  • I just heard some sad news on talk radio - DNA co-discoverer/founder of molecular biology Francis Harry Compton Crick OM (Order of Merit) was found dead in Thornton Hospital, San Diego this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to science. Truly an icon of our modern era.

  • Forests (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bartok ( 111886 ) on Thursday July 29, 2004 @01:39PM (#9833774)
    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".
    • The failure of farms all over the USA (beginning in places like Vermont, but hardly confined to that region) plus deliberate conservation efforts have led to a re-forestation of the continent. River-bottom land in some areas has been removed from farming and returned to oak forest. Michigan was clear-cut in the 19th century, and it's once again heavily forested in many areas.

      We could do more, beginning with discouraging (instead of subsidizing) excess agricultural production and returning that land to fore

      • The failure of farms all over the USA (beginning in places like Vermont, but hardly confined to that region) plus deliberate conservation efforts have led to a re-forestation of the continent. River-bottom land in some areas has been removed from farming and returned to oak forest. Michigan was clear-cut in the 19th century, and it's once again heavily forested in many areas.

        What's the ratio of forests to tree farms? That ratio may be relevant, as I'd guess that tree farms probably aren't nearly as goo

        • 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

        • I can't speak for the country as a whole, but mid-Michigan is mainly natural forest now. There's not much of it, especially sine the Tri Cities and Flint have been building out, but they aren't farm trees. Much of it is abandoned farmland. Some from the Depression, when farmers started letting land fall into disrepair and only growing enough to support their community instead of growing food they can't sell, and a lot of it from people moving into the cities to work for GM and Ford. Thomas Township, near
        • I'd guess that tree farms probably aren't nearly as good at carbon-fixing

          But what happens to the carbon?
          The carbon locked in a tree farm's wood gets harvested. If it becomes building material and is sealed inside a wall then that carbon has been removed from the atmosphere. If a tree falls in the forest and rots, some of that carbon is released to the atmosphere.

    • Oregon has required, since Gov Tom McCall's bill in 1973 on this issue, replanting 3 trees for every tree cut down within 3 years. Which goes to show that it's the stupidity of Bush, not being Republican like Tom McCall who thought that conservation and being a conservative went hand in hand (something about the root word?), that has led to the Biscuit Fire Cut.

      Given today's employment problems in Oregon, I'd vote for an old true conservationist conservative in a split second. Just imagine telling all t
    • Sometimes after experience has shown some of the risks, it is wise to say "Do as I suggest, not as I did". History is history: it is meant to be learnt from, not to be hung like a millstone around the neck.

      North American deforestation has had many downsides. Human beings, regardless of the continent, are advised to not make the same mistakes.

  • Plankton (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kippy ( 416183 ) on Thursday July 29, 2004 @02:35PM (#9834685)
    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.
    • 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.

      I don't know whether you're wrong or not, but I don't think you can simply count the sheer volume of the oceans. (1) There is insufficient sunlight penetration for photosynthesis below about 200 meters and (

      • You're making an incorrect distinction between absorption and fixation. Whether or not the carbon is fixed in organic matter, it can go into the ocean; unfixed CO2 will exist as carbonic acid, dissolved CO2, bicarbonate ion or carbonate ion.

        Adding CO2 means reducing alkalinity, which makes carbonate less stable in the oceans. This may have serious effects on marine organisms which use carbonate in their skeletons; see here [sunherald.com] for a brief news item. Science News has run several articles on the subject, but non

    • Iron (Score:2)

      by sybert ( 192766 )
      Iron is the limiting factor [techcentralstation.com] for most ocean biomass growth. A pound of iron in any form added to the ocean can yield new life enough to sequester anywhere from five to fifty tones of carbon.

      North America is also a huge carbon sink. [noaa.gov]


  • The World's Largest Environmental Experiment is humanity living on Earth. Period. We use, abuse and expell. Someday this planet of ours will be un-inhabitable if we keep on going the way we are...

  • Even with 800 delegates, if even one of them is Pauly Shore [imdb.com], the whole thing is buggered.

    Note to moderators: I'm not sure myself if this is an insight or a cheap joke.

  • Half-truths and other nonsense (Score:3, Informative)

    by prof_peabody ( 741865 ) on Thursday July 29, 2004 @10:55PM (#9839958)
    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!

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