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Trees that end up submerged in fresh water hang onto their stored carbon dioxide longer than trees that fall in the forest.
The riparian solution
“If a tree is submerged in water, its carbon will be stored for an average of 2,000 years. If a tree falls in a forest, that number is reduced to an average of 20 years, and in firewood, the carbon is only stored for one year,” said Richard Guyette, director of the Missouri University Tree Ring Lab and research associate professor of forestry in the School of Natural Resources in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, University of Missouri.
Using tree-ring dating and radiocarbon dating, researchers from MU Tree Ring studied trees in northern Missouri, a geographically unique area with a high level of riparian forests (forests that have natural water flowing through them). While in the forests they discovered submerged oak trees as old as 14,000 years, potentially some of the oldest in the world. The team was able to document the distribution and carbon storage of oak wood buried by streams and floodplains.
Still effective
Trees that are still living have the ability to store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere. When the tree begins to decay, the carbon is release back into the air. Discovering that certain conditions slow this process reveals the importance of proper tree disposal as well as the benefits of riparian forests.
According to Guyette, this carbon storage process is not only ancient; it continues even today as additional trees become submerged. More than 30 percent of sampled oak wood entered the floodplain sediments and stream waters within the last 1,000 years, and a few samples dated to the last 150 years.
Important discovery
These findings are important since they show the importance of flowing water and the danger when human activities and climate alter those patterns and changing the continuous and long-term form of carbon storage.
“Carbon plays a huge role in climate change and information about where it goes will be very important someday soon,” said Michael C. Stambaugh, research associate in the MU Department of Forestry. “The goal is to increase our knowledge of the carbon cycle, particularly its exchange between the biosphere (plants) and atmosphere. We need to know where it goes and for how long in order to know how to offset its effects.”
Cap and trade addition
Submerged trees could be a valuable source of income for landowners when a carbon emissions trading market becomes standard practice in the United States as it is today in Europe.
"Farmers can sell the carbon they have stored in their trees through a carbon credit stock market," Guyette said. "Companies that emit excess of carbon would be able to buy carbon credits to offset their pollution."
The study The Temporal Distribution and Carbon Storage of Large Oak Wood in Streams and Floodplain Deposits was published in the Ecosystems journal.
Jennifer Faddis is the Lead Sr. Information Specialist at the University of Missouri.
Green Living Network
