01/05/03

Carbon emissions offset negative effects of forests

By: Katie Mantell

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<h1>Carbon emissions offset negative effects of forests</h1>
<h4>By: Katie Mantell</h4>
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<p>Planting more trees is widely seen as one way to counter global climate change, as they are able to absorb carbon dioxide. But commercial forests — which are largely made up of fast-growing trees — present their own problem, namely the production of the chemical isoprene, which enhances the lifetime of another greenhouse gas, methane.<BR><BR>But trials carried out in Biosphere 2, a huge glass-and-metal structure near Tucson, Arizona, show that exposing a cottonwood plantation to increased levels of carbon dioxide actually reduced isoprene production by 40 per cent. <BR><BR>The research — published in this week’s <em>Nature</em> — suggests that increases in global carbon dioxide levels could partially offset the negative impacts of massive “agroforests”.<BR><BR>© SciDev.Net 2003</p>

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<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/news/carbon-emissions-offset-negative-effects-of-forest/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Planting more trees is widely seen as one way to counter global climate change, as they are able to absorb carbon dioxide. But commercial forests — which are largely made up of fast-growing trees — present their own problem, namely the production of the chemical isoprene, which enhances the lifetime of another greenhouse gas, methane.

But trials carried out in Biosphere 2, a huge glass-and-metal structure near Tucson, Arizona, show that exposing a cottonwood plantation to increased levels of carbon dioxide actually reduced isoprene production by 40 per cent.

The research — published in this week’s Nature — suggests that increases in global carbon dioxide levels could partially offset the negative impacts of massive “agroforests”.

© SciDev.Net 2003