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--></style><title>How logging contributes to climate
destabilization</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>Clear-cutting destabilizes carbon
in forest soils, Dartmouth study finds</b></font><font
face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande">DARTMOUTH COLLEGE PUBLIC
RELEASE: 15-APR-2016</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
HANOVER, N.H. - Clear-cutting loosens up carbon stored in forest
soils, increasing the chances it will return to the atmosphere as
carbon dioxide and contribute to climate change, a Dartmouth College
study shows.</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
The findings appear in the journal Soil Science.</font><font
face="Arial"><br>
</font><font
face="Lucida Grande"><<<u
>http://journals.lww.com/soilsci/Abstract/publishahead/Eviden</u
>ce_for_Losses_From_Strongly_Bound_SOM_Pools.99634.aspx>></font><br
>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">Soil is the world's largest
terrestrial carbon pool. In northern hardwood forests in the United
States, mineral soil pools store up to 50 percent of total ecosystem
carbon.<b> Logging and other land-use changes are a major cause of
soil carbon release, but there has been recent interest to further
understand soil carbon dynamics in forested ecosystems after
logging.</b> This is of particular importance in the northeastern U.S.
because of the great potential for the use of biomass as part of a
diversified renewable energy portfolio.</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
The Dartmouth researchers explored whether clear-cutting changes the
strength of the chemical bonds of carbon stored in mineral soils in
hardwood forests in the northeastern United States. Clear-cutting
involves harvesting all timber from a site at once rather than
selectively culling mature trees. Carbon is stored in soil by binding
only to certain soil structures.</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
The researchers collected soils from recently clear-cut forests and
from older forests, and pulled carbon from the soil in a sequence of
gentle to stronger extractions. The results showed that mature forest
stands stored significantly more soil organic carbon in strongly
mineral-bound and stable carbon pools than did soils from cut
stands.</font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">"Clear-cutting forests has an
effect of mobilizing the carbon, making it more likely to leave the
soil and end up in the atmosphere," says senior author Andrew
Friedland, a professor of environmental studies. "These findings
are important because differences in the relative distribution of
carbon in organo-mineral pools in mature and cut forests may inform
our understanding of soil organic matter stability and
bioavailability, microbial decomposition and carbon dioxide production
in ecosystems after clear-cutting."</font><font face="Times"
size="-1" color="#1D1D1D"><br>
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<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1"
color="#000000"><b> </b></font><font face="Bookman Old Style"
size="-1"
color="#000000"><b
>============================================================</b></font
></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#000000">The global climate
change agreement brokered in Paris in December by 195 nations will
come into effect two years earlier than originally planned, the top
United Nations climate diplomat predicted.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#000000">Even so, she said
the deal had come "10 years too late," and that the world is now
at "two minutes to midnight."</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font size="-2"
color="#000000"
>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-11/paris-climate-deal<span
></span>-seen-taking-effect-two-years-ahead-of-plan</font><br>
<font size="-1" color="#FFFF00"><u></u></font></div>
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