Is there a sound made when a tree farts in the forest
Is there a sound made when a tree farts in the forest? No, however, it does contribute a trace amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Researchers report online May 10 in Biogeochemistry that gases exhaled by dead trees, dubbed “tree farts,” account for nearly one-fifth of the greenhouse gases emitted by skeletal, marshy woods along the coast of North Carolina. While these emissions are minor compared to other sources, precise accounting is required to provide a complete picture of where climate-warming gases originate.
A group of ecologists went sniffing for tree farts in ghost woods, which occur when saltwater from rising sea levels poisons a forest, leaving a swamp full of standing dead trees behind. These phantom ecosystems are anticipated to grow in size due to climate change, but it is unknown how they contribute to the global carbon budget.
“The appearance of ghost woods is one of the most significant changes occurring as a result of sea-level rise,” says Keryn Gedan, a coastal ecologist who was not involved in the research. “As forests change to wetlands, we anticipate that to represent a significant carbon sink over long timescales,” she adds, citing the fact that wetlands store more carbon than forests. In the short term, however, dead trees decompose and stop absorbing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, “so that will be a big greenhouse gas source.”
The researchers monitored greenhouse gases wafting off dead trees and soil in five ghost forests on North Carolina’s Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula to understand better how ghost forests emit gas into the sky. The earth talked about the majority of the greenhouse gases emitted by the ghost woods. Each square meter of ground released 416 milligrams of CO2 per hour, 5.9 milligrams of methane, and 0.1 milligrams of nitrous oxide.
Dead trees emit around 116 milligrams of CO2, 0.3 milligrams of methane, and 0.04 milligrams of nitrous oxide per square meter every hour, accounting for almost one-fourth of soil emissions. Measuring greenhouse gas emissions from trees is like “measuring the last breath of these forests,” according to Marcelo Ardón, an ecosystems ecologist and biogeochemist at North Carolina State University. The dead trees “don’t release a lot, but they are important” to the overall emission of a ghost forest.
This article is curated by Prittle Prattle News.
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