Effects of Climate Change on the Boreal Forests in Canada
The boreal forest in Canada covers about a third the whole boreal forest in the polar region of the northern hemisphere. There are also other countries covered partly by the boreal forest like Russia and the Nordic and Scandinavian countries such as Norway, Finland and Sweden. In Canada, the boreal region covers about 60% of the land area, from Labrador and Newfoundland to the provinces of Alaska and Yukon. This area is mainly covered by Coniferous forests with a lot of biodiversity (Woynillowicz, et al, 67).
The boreal forests store carbon which controls the rate of global warming caused by human activities. The process is natural through photosynthesis where by the trees and plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere as they grow. The absorption of carbon by the trees and plants in the forest helps in slowing down global warming. This makes the forest to be the largest store of carbon which exceeds other carbon storage areas such as the Amazon. It contains about 22% of all the carbon stored on earth. Carbon is normally store in forests, terrestrial vegetation, soils, lake sediments and peat (Tarnocai, 228).
The ecosystem in the boreal forests is suited for storage of carbon since it holds a huge amount of carbon per unit area than any terrestrial ecosystem. The boreal forest stores twice the amount of carbon stored by the tropical forests, and about three times of carbon stored by temperate forests. This is because the boreal forests are in the cold temperature regions which reduces the rate of decomposition and the wetlands are rich in carbon. The carbon stored in the boreal forest in Canada is about 208 billion tonnes, with about 56% of it stored in peat. The remaining...
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When westward expansion brought settlers to the Northwest in the 1800s, they discovered that coniferous trees “forty feet in circumference [that] shot two-hundred feet straight up” flourished in the forests of the Pacific coast (Ervin 55). These early pioneers found the opportunity for economic growth in logging these vast forests of towering trees unlike any they had seen before. Today, the timber industry still remains the backbone of economic support for Washington, Oregon, and northwestern California, but an inevitable conflict has arisen between humans and our environment. A struggle over the control of the use of the old-growth forests threatens the balance of the ecosystem and the stability of the economy in the Pacific Northwest.
A very interesting statistic is how long lived trees add to terrestrial sequestration.. For example, over the 70-year life span of a 410-acre grove of trees planted for a terrestrial sequestration project, over 70,000 tons of carbon dioxide will be sequestered.
FAO: State of the World's Forests. Rome: Food and Agriculture Office of the United Nations; 2007. Print.
Currently the earth’s atmosphere contains most of the world’s carbon, in 2010 carbon levels in the atmosphere were measured at 18.4 billion metric tonnes.
Perry, D. A. (1998). The Scientific Basis of Forestry, Annual Review of Ecology and System Thematic 29:435-466, Retrieved July 9, 2005 from: http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/policy/policy_and_events/index.cfm
Farmers cleared away the trees for farm animals to graze which means deforestation is caused by growth. Forests assume a huge role in the carbon cycle on our planet. When forests are slashed down, not only does carbon absorption cease, but also the carbon which was stored in the burned trees is released into the atmosphere as CO2. Small crops for instance plants and agricultural crops also draw in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, however forests store up to 100 times more carbon than agricultural fields of the same zone. “It is estimated that more than 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released to the atmosphere due to deforestation and over 30 million acres of forests and woods are lost every year” Conserve Energy Future
Seideman, D. (1993). Out of the Woods: Vol. . A Forest of Voices (2nd ed.) [Conversations in Ecology].Mayfield.
Tundra is the coldest of all the biomes on earth. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturia, which means treeless plain. It is a distinctive biome due to its peat covered landscapes, extremely low temperatures, little precipitation, poor nutrients, and short growing seasons which all act as driving factors. Tundra is found at latitudes 60° to 70° North, with the majority in Canada and Russia. Like the ocean, tundra is one of Earth's major carbon dioxide sinks. A carbon dioxide sink is a biomass which takes in more carbon dioxide than it releases. Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas that contributes to global climate change. During the short summer tundra's vegetation takes in carbon dioxide, sunlight and water through the process of photosynthesis. The plants normally give off carbon dioxide after they die and decompose. But because of the short, cool summer and freezing winter temperatures of the tundra, plants can't decompose and the carbon dioxide is not released. The remains of plants thousands of years old have been found in the tundra’s layer of decomposing vegetation called permafrost. This is how the tundra traps the carbon dioxide and removes it from the atmosphere thus making it a sink. Today the global warming trend is melting the permafrost of the tundra and every year several feet of tundra are lost. As the tundra’s permafrost melts, the plant mass can now decompose and return the carbon dioxide to the atmosphere making it now a source and further exacerbating the problem. Very resent studies have found that there is a correlation between the effects of global warming and the melting of permafrost and if this trend continues there is no telling if we can halt it.
Rainforests help stabilize the world's climate by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is believed to contribute to climate change through global warming. Therefore rainforests have an important in addressing global warming.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), carbon dioxide is the primary gas emitted through human activities and is the most important human contributed greenhouse gas (Overview of greenhouse, 2014). Carbon dioxide is naturally occurring in Earth’s atmosphere. The passing of carbon dioxide through the atmosphere, oceans, soil, plants, and animals is what is known as the carbon cycle. This carbon cycle is important to sustaining life here on Earth. Carbon dioxide is important to life on earth because it is the main component of many biological compounds, minerals, and exists in various forms in the atmosphere (Carbon Cycle, 2014). Humans are disrupting this carbon cycle however by adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and by removing natural absorbers of carbon dioxide, like forests to remove the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is where the greenhouse effect comes into play, since the industrial revolution there has been an increase in the human-related emission of carbon dioxide mainly due to the burning or combustion of fossil fuels for energy. Other contributors include certain industrial processes, the differen...
Thesis: Forests provide the earth with a regulated climate, strong biodiversity, and good nutrient rich soil for plants to strive on.
The world’s climate is kept stable and suitable to live in, mainly by rainforests, in a number of ways. They are often known as ‘climate controllers’. They keep the planet cool, as they absorb much of the suns heat, instead of reflecting it back into the atmosphere.
“Healthy forests help absorb greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions that are caused by human civilization and contribute to global climate change. Without trees, more carbon and greenhouse gasses enter the...
Tropical rain forests and temperate forests are two different types of forests. They differ in density, diversity of species, regions, altitudes and their usefulness to humans. This usefulness is referred to as values. The values obtained from forests are aesthetics, scientific and educational purposes. In addition forests have the ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide released into the air from man’s endeavours. This CO2 contributes to the sudden increase in global warming. The total value of a forest ecosystem is the combined value of each individual species living within that habitat.
The older, larger trees can store much, much more carbon dioxide than a new tree