Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Climate Change Forum Peat Bogs to solve Warming?

It sounds as if someone could make a lot of money sequestering CO2 in this way.
Well, I'm trying to say that this process (in general) might be better at saving the planet than just cutting CO2 emissions (though that's important too).

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/inqu/finalprogram/abstract_54908.htm

More than 3.5 m of peat accumulated between 11,000 and 7,500 yr BP, indicating that Southeast Asia possibly acted as a large sink of atmospheric CO2 during that time.
This may, in part, have contributed to the decrease in atmospheric CO2 in the early Holocene to a minimal 260 parts per million by volume (p.p.m.v.) around 8,000 yr BP.
The 20 p.p.m.v. rise over the last 8,000 yrs observed in the Taylor Dome ice core has been attributed to a decrease in terrestrial biomass and also coincides with a reduced organic carbon accumulation rate in the Kalimantan peat core as well as at other sites around Southeast Asia.

??
~SA

We know from recent events the region is geologically very active. As sea level rose at the end of the ice age the land may also have risen in places meaning organic matter was able to continue building up. I presume after several million years the accumulated vegetation will be covered with sediment and become coal. Can we wait that long?

Hiya Terry!
Gee, I'm not familiar with the area. It sounds interesting. Maybe I'm missing the connection between the bogs becoming coal and the sequestration of CO2. Or am I reading too much into what you wrote? CO2 gets sequestered in a bog and will stay there unless the bog dries out, I think. True, it'll stay there also if it's covered and turns into coal. I guess I'm not sure why you ask, "Can we wait that long?"
Does my post sound as if I'm advocating bogs as a fuel source? My point was supposed to be that we could sequester large amounts of CO2 simply by avoiding (or reversing) a "decrease in terrestrial biomass."

I know, hahahaha; 'simply?'

Well mainly at this point, I just want to see if the concept is valid.

Aside from bogs (and whales), there are other possibilities.

"One recent study (Milesi et al. 2005) used a modeling analysis to suggest that NEE from turfgrass growing in the US could be as high as 17 Tg C yr-1, or roughly 1.0 Mg C ha-1 yr-1, and additional work from two sites in Maryland suggests that thatch development beneath turfgrass could be sequestering C at highly managed sites (Raturi et al. 2004).
That soils beneath intensively managed turfgrass can sequester significant amounts of C is also confirmed by the analysis of Qian and Follett (2002), who estimate that soils in the top 11.4 cm of 16 golf courses in Colorado and Wyoming did accumulate, on average, 0.9 to 1.0 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 for the first 25 to 30 years after turfgrass establishment...."
http://www.unri.org/fos/Plans/NASA_ROSES_2005.pdf
(just ignore the first page -tiny text)

In other words, build more golf courses (and bogs)!

Thanks Terry,

~~SA

p.s. NEE = net ecosystem-atmosphere exchange; and I think 1 Teragram = 1 Megatonne.

Borneo is part of Indonesia. Indonesia has had its share of earthquakes in the last few years. The region is of more interest to us in this part of the world than to people in the northern hemisphere. It's not really that far from us.

Samwik said:

'I'm not sure why you ask, "Can we wait that long?"'

Could take millions of years before it turns to even low quality coal that we can then burn and recycle. Perhaps you are reading too much into what I wrote.

I'm still puzzled. Why do you talk about coal?
I'm not advocating "growing" coal.

Bogs, like golf course and marine NPP, are just ways I think we could suck up Gtons of CO2 (now).

Overall, my thought is that it'd be easier to soak up CO2 rather than cut emissions; and we'd be increasing our food supply and net diversity at the same time.

~SA
p.s. ...cutting emissions is also good, but...it'll be too slow.

Samwik. You originally wrote:

"More than 3.5 m of peat accumulated between 11,000 and 7,500 yr BP, indicating that Southeast Asia possibly acted as a large sink of atmospheric CO2 during that time."

Using that method to suck up CO2 would obviously have to be a long-term project. If we wait long enough that peat would turn to coal which, I guess, we could then burn.

I agree we might be able to soak up CO2 but in practice it would be a slow process.

I recall reading not that long ago that frozen Peat Bogs in Siberia and Northern Canada would start to thaw if this world-wide warming trend continues, dispersing untold amounts of Methane into the atmosphere.

This would be a Carbon "Discharge" rather than a Carbon "Storage", as suggested by the post. I'm not a "Doom & Gloom" kind of guy, but if that scenario unfolds, and it seems likely, the giant Peat Bogs of the Northern Latitudes would exacerbate Global Warming rather than "Solve" it.

Yes, peat bogs (as most things like trees, whales, & golf courses) soak up CO2 when forming and release it (or methane) when drying out or decaying.

"...Factors acting over long time scales, especially water table depth, strongly influenced the carbon budget on annual time scales. Net uptake was enhanced and respiration inhibited by multiple years of rainfall in excess of evaporative demand. Contrary to expectations, we observed no correlation between longer growing seasons and net uptake, possibly because of offsetting increases in ecosystem respiration. The results indicate that the interactions between soil thaw and water table depth provide critical controls on carbon exchange in boreal forests underlain by peat, on seasonal to decadal time scales, and these factors must be simulated in terrestrial biosphere models to predict response of these regions to future climate."
Global Change Biology
Volume 13 Issue 3 Page 577 - March 2007

also...(this is in relation to the European heatwave of 2003)

"...FLUXNET eddy-covariance data indicate that the drop in productivity was not primarily caused by high temperatures ('heat stress') but rather by limitation of water (drought stress) and that, contrary to the classical expectation about a heat wave, not only gross primary productivity but also ecosystem respiration declined by up to more than to 80 gC m2 /month."
Global Change Biology
Volume 13 Issue 3 Page 634 - March 2007

Bogs release methane even while frozen (from methanogens), but they are not like the oceanic methane clathrates which could "erupt" at some 'tripping' temperature.

Bogs are a good example of earth in general. they both absorb and emit lots of CO2 (and come close to balancing in the long term).

I think it's something like 130 GtC/yr that exchanges on a yearly basis (terrestrial only). Humans emit about 7 GtC/yr. If we could shift that balance (130 Gt exchange) just a couple of percent, we could sequester as much as we produce. Of course that would mean watering our 'lawns' much more than we do now (worldwide). And overall, the earth is drying out. So...I'm not a "Doom & Gloom" kind of guy either, but it's hard not to be....

Maybe grow a backyard bog (or any wetland)....

Which also leads me to ask about the oceans as an HNL.
Oceans are maybe larger than 130 GtC/yr. exchange (which also are not healthy, growing absorbers anymore) IMHO.
I know; "Ice retreat over the last 30 years has tripled the amount of CO2 the Arctic Ocean can absorb." (New Scientist online, 6 January 2007, from issue 2585, p. 16) I still think that both oceans and lands have shifted to be net producers of CO2 overall (due to human activities).

Sorry, I'm preaching again. Enough for now....


(I may be confusing C with CO2 in this 'hasty' post, but that's still only a factor of ~3.5) (also, I think 1 gC/m2 roughly translate as 1 MtC exchange). Hopefully the general idea comes across; make the world more productive and absorb excess CO2 (and feed ourselves as a side benefit?).

~SA

The answer is simple reduce your gdp by 30% or your population and you will have no co2 problems