Let's Burn Down the Earth's Forests!

[AngelLestat]

Who said that the oceans would become vapor? I'm fairly certain that wouldn't happen because the trees went up in flames...

Or I'm ignorant, an idiot, or both.

Is not like that, we are saying that a little increase in co2, can increase the greenhouse effect which would trap more heat from the sun, which would melt more ice (so less solar light reflected), then methane is release due melting permafrost, which rise the greenhouse effect, which bring more temperature so more water vapor in the atmosphere, which increase the greenhouse effect and so go on, until you become Venus..

That is the global warming doom. But we are not sure if burning all the trees can trigger that.

But not by burning the trees. As mentioned earlier in the thread, burning the forests won't have too much of a direct effect on carbon dioxide. The climate is very complex, and it would take much, much more than a temperature change of a few degrees to evaporate the oceans. I'm sure that releasing all of the methane in Siberia, one of the biggest positive feedbacks loops of climate change, won't be nearly enough. It would take incredibly dramatic changes to evaporate the oceans, possibly near-extinction of all life on Earth over millions of years (life helps to seed clouds, create O2, etc). There are inhibiting factors as well as positive feedback loops..

The true is that we dont know for sure, as I said it can be enoght to trigger a chain of events.

Climate is too complicate, for that reason we need to go to venus and find out what happen there with certain and test our climate models in venus, any deviation would help us to correct climate models here.

Then we can know for sure how bad is our current path, also can give us clues in what is the best way to stop it.

The corral reef temperature dependency has some logical fails, first its corrals in some of the hottest areas in the world, also corral reefs are so old they predated the end of the ice age.

More likely some corrals are very temperature dependent, other are not, the big killer for corral reefs are migrate microorganisms and eggs who come in with ballast water from ships.

Read my other responces..

Here is info about coral reef:

However, coral reefs are fragile ecosystems, partly because they are very sensitive to water temperature. They are under threat from climate change, oceanic acidification, blast fishing, cyanide fishing for aquarium fish, sunscreen use,[7] overuse of reef resources, and harmful land-use practices, including urban and agricultural runoff and water pollution, which can harm reefs by encouraging excess algal growth

This effect may or may not be enoght to trigger a venus process.

But is very probably that would cause a mass extintion.

In any case, no temperature achievable on Earth (realistically) will be able to melt dolomite, with its melting point at 3000 degrees Celsius.

"The rock that won't cope out when there's heat all about. It's Dolomite baby!"

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0wZLKBsDxtw/hqdefault.jpg

ok nfun, but what is the % of carbon in this?

[magnemoe]

What if both burning forests and melting clathrates occurred at the same time? The raging infernos could ignite all of that new methane, creating metric craploads of more resilient CO2!

Sssshhhh. I can dream.

It would help methane is a worse greenhouse gas than co2, more fun close to where I was living before they have an actual gas field, its a 50 year old garbage dump who released methane into the wast water pipes and caused some fires, now they drilled and piped it and have an container its burned and heat go into the system to heat buildings. Has an torch to burn it during summer, read this on a sign to prevent people from calling the fire department because of the flare:)

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

there are about 638 million tons of carbon in the Earth's forests.

That seems pretty low. Dosen't the US produce something like half a billion tonnes of timber annually? (obviously timber is mostly Oxygen but still).

edit: well wet living trees are mostly oxygen, dry timber is about 50% carbon.

edit: a little more googling and it seems the total carbon content of the worlds forrests would be between 100 billion and 250 billion tonnes.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Fuzzy Dunlop

[magnemoe]

Is not like that, we are saying that a little increase in co2, can increase the greenhouse effect which would trap more heat from the sun, which would melt more ice (so less solar light reflected), then methane is release due melting permafrost, which rise the greenhouse effect, which bring more temperature so more water vapor in the atmosphere, which increase the greenhouse effect and so go on, until you become Venus..

That is the global warming doom. But we are not sure if burning all the trees can trigger that.

The corral reef temperature dependency has some logical fails, first its corrals in some of the hottest areas in the world, also corral reefs are so old they predated the end of the ice age.

More likely some corrals are very temperature dependent, other are not, the big killer for corral reefs are migrate microorganisms and eggs who come in with ballast water from ships.

In short if earth would go to hell if global temperature increased 3 degree it would have gone to hell hundreds of millions of years ago, flooding human cities only matter for humans and rats, somebody has to think about the rats.

Burning all the forests would however has major ecological effects in missing species, not sure how much cooling it would generate as clouds would be pretty low.

Read my other responces..

Here is info about coral reef:

However, coral reefs are fragile ecosystems, partly because they are very sensitive to water temperature. They are under threat from climate change, oceanic acidification, blast fishing, cyanide fishing for aquarium fish, sunscreen use,[7] overuse of reef resources, and harmful land-use practices, including urban and agricultural runoff and water pollution, which can harm reefs by encouraging excess algal growth

Ignoring invasive species who has been the great killer on the barrier reef outside Australia and probably other places. has been an campaign to have UV lamps in ballast tanks on ships to kill organisms in the ballast water but its an too cheap and easy solution to get any traction. As in it don't give any revenue or compensation money, it just cost the shipping companies a few dollars.

Else its pretty obvious that fishing with dynamite is bad, will not talk about cyanide fishing but sounds like something you could end up in jail for life for

[NFUN]

Is not like that, we are saying that a little increase in co2, can increase the greenhouse effect which would trap more heat from the sun, which would melt more ice (so less solar light reflected), then methane is release due melting permafrost, which rise the greenhouse effect, which bring more temperature so more water vapor in the atmosphere, which increase the greenhouse effect and so go on, until you become Venus..

That is the global warming doom. But we are not sure if burning all the trees can trigger that.

The true is that we dont know for sure, as I said it can be enoght to trigger a chain of events.

Climate is too complicate, for that reason we need to go to venus and find out what happen there with certain and test our climate models in venus, any deviation would help us to correct climate models here.

Then we can know for sure how bad is our current path, also can give us clues in what is the best way to stop it.

Read my other responces..

Here is info about coral reef:

However, coral reefs are fragile ecosystems, partly because they are very sensitive to water temperature. They are under threat from climate change, oceanic acidification, blast fishing, cyanide fishing for aquarium fish, sunscreen use,[7] overuse of reef resources, and harmful land-use practices, including urban and agricultural runoff and water pollution, which can harm reefs by encouraging excess algal growth

This effect may or may not be enoght to trigger a venus process.

But is very probably that would cause a mass extintion.

ok nfun, but what is the % of carbon in this?

Well, the crust has over 99.5% of the carbon on/in the Earth, with most of the minerals being carbonates (compounds with CO3 groups). Rocks generally have high melting points (citation needed). Limestone, the most common carbonate, decomposes at 850 degrees Celsius to release carbon dioxide. Dolomite decomposes at a similar temp (you asked for its melting point, achieved under different conditions, before) as limestone, and most other carbonates likely do as well. Even assuming that all of these minerals were exposed to the temperatures at the surface, they wouldn't be able to decay into CO2. Venus only has a mean temperature of 450 degrees, and that is with much of its carbon in the atmosphere. Carbonic acid rainfall could release carbon, but it is still unfeasible for the rocks to be exposed to the elements at the surface.

[magnemoe]

Well, the crust has over 99.5% of the carbon on/in the Earth, with most of the minerals being carbonates (compounds with CO3 groups). Rocks generally have high melting points (citation needed). Limestone, the most common carbonate, decomposes at 850 degrees Celsius to release carbon dioxide. Dolomite decomposes at a similar temp (you asked for its melting point, achieved under different conditions, before) as limestone, and most other carbonates likely do as well. Even assuming that all of these minerals were exposed to the temperatures at the surface, they wouldn't be able to decay into CO2. Venus only has a mean temperature of 450 degrees, and that is with much of its carbon in the atmosphere. Carbonic acid rainfall could release carbon, but it is still unfeasible for the rocks to be exposed to the elements at the surface.

I wan't a time machine and go back an fix Venus, then I sell it on Ebay, just to discover that the 10^11 dollar I got for it is limited then the the US, EU, China, India and Russia declares war against me, should have said $10^9 and nobody would complain.

[AngelLestat]

Ignoring invasive species who has been the great killer on the barrier reef outside Australia and probably other places. has been an campaign to have UV lamps in ballast tanks on ships to kill organisms in the ballast water but its an too cheap and easy solution to get any traction. As in it don't give any revenue or compensation money, it just cost the shipping companies a few dollars.

Else its pretty obvious that fishing with dynamite is bad, will not talk about cyanide fishing but sounds like something you could end up in jail for life for

The problem with temperature may be more related to change in currents due climate change, of course that other causes may be more related to certain coral areas.

About invasive species, I guess the most dangerous is the Human, but as we can not kill our self, we kill the other invasive species.

I dint understand the dynamite example.. that was a joke? XD

Well, the crust has over 99.5% of the carbon on/in the Earth, with most of the minerals being carbonates (compounds with CO3 groups). Rocks generally have high melting points (citation needed). Limestone, the most common carbonate, decomposes at 850 degrees Celsius to release carbon dioxide. Dolomite decomposes at a similar temp (you asked for its melting point, achieved under different conditions, before) as limestone, and most other carbonates likely do as well. Even assuming that all of these minerals were exposed to the temperatures at the surface, they wouldn't be able to decay into CO2. Venus only has a mean temperature of 450 degrees, and that is with much of its carbon in the atmosphere. Carbonic acid rainfall could release carbon, but it is still unfeasible for the rocks to be exposed to the elements at the surface.

We know that Venus does not have more carbonate rocks anymore, so they decomposes before.. How? well something sure is that venus had similar amount of water than earth.. That could be trigger the first greenhouse effect with higher temperatures than now.

There is a note in this page:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0510/p25s02-stss.html

"Venus may very well have had carbonate rocks in the past, but as things started to heat up, the rocks got baked. As carbonate rocks heat up, their carbon dioxide gets baked out. When that temperature threshold was passed, perhaps billions of years ago, the rocks began to exhale carbon dioxide."

Also may be that earth has some effects which help to counter (until certain point) this chain of events that venus dint have.

- - - Updated - - -

I wan't a time machine and go back an fix Venus, then I sell it on Ebay, just to discover that the 10^11 dollar I got for it is limited then the the US, EU, China, India and Russia declares war against me, should have said $10^9 and nobody would complain.

Maybe you will find some aliens doing the same mistake we do.

[NFUN]

The problem with temperature may be more related to change in currents due climate change, of course that other causes may be more related to certain coral areas.

About invasive species, I guess the most dangerous is the Human, but as we can not kill our self, we kill the other invasive species.

I dint understand the dynamite example.. that was a joke? XD

We know that Venus does not have more carbonate rocks anymore, so they decomposes before.. How? well something sure is that venus had similar amount of water than earth.. That could be trigger the first greenhouse effect with higher temperatures than now.

There is a note in this page:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0510/p25s02-stss.html

"Venus may very well have had carbonate rocks in the past, but as things started to heat up, the rocks got baked. As carbonate rocks heat up, their carbon dioxide gets baked out. When that temperature threshold was passed, perhaps billions of years ago, the rocks began to exhale carbon dioxide."

Also may be that earth has some effects which help to counter (until certain point) this chain of events that venus dint have.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe you will find some aliens doing the same mistake we do.

Ok, fine. Lets assume that Venus had an equal amount of water as Earth does, and was heated gradually, with the rate of increase growing over time as more carbonates were destroyed. There is still a difference between the two bodies-- Venus is closer to the Sun as the Earth is. Having a higher baseload temperature makes a big difference, especially as your article notes, "The planet must have started out just a little too warm to form a network of oceans". With no vast, deep oceans, water could have evaporated much more quickly, and water vapor would remain in the air without a functional water cycle, which is largely fueled by the oceans and life. The water would remain in the atmosphere without adequate condensation, and would also contribute to warming. With the destruction of forests and coral reefs, mass extinction would occur, but it wouldn't take very long, geologically speaking, for algae and plankton to adapt to the warmer, more acidic oceans. I doubt the tiny makers will go extinct, and even if many die off they will likely recover.

[KerBlam]

For starters, you ever tried to burn wet wood? Most forests are able to withstand a bushfire and survive. Let alone rainforests, you might as well try to burn down the ocean.

You'd need to cut them all down first and let the wood dry out.

I don't know your friend, but the fact that he's thinking about stuff like this worries me. Trees are awesome.

[NFUN]

Alright, I found a NewScientist article I had read about a year back, about what would happen to Earth if all of its life died off. According to the article, it would probably take a temperature increase of 40 degrees Celsius to trigger a runaway greenhouse effect strong enough to start evaporating away the oceans. The article speculates that without any life at all, it would take over 10 million years to reach this point. As algae and producers in oceans contribute more to carbon sequestration than forests*, this eventuality is unlikely, and the Earth will not be hot enough to release carbon dioxide from carbonates in any significant manner.

*Old-growth forests actually don't sequester carbon as they exist; forests without significant expansion will have decaying trees that realize CO2 counteracting the living trees that use it. Aquatic photosynthesizers sink when they die, which acts as a way to get rid of the carbon they absorbed from the air.

[AngelLestat]

not sure about the time scale, I read all climate change articles and I detect certain tendency.. every time they discover that it would happen faster than their previous thought.

In fact if we stop to burn oil now, the earth temperature will continue to rise over the next 50 to 100 years.

But we are in the unknown, the only thing that all scientist agree, is that temperature will rise and it will be bad.

Our current models are not so accurate to measure so many different factors all working toghether over the next year.

About the difference in temperature over earth and venus due sun distance, the differece is very small, but may be enoght.

Even 5 degress here in earth seems pretty devastating.

[PB666]

Actually algae are the powerhouse in carbon fixation. Trees don't actually fixate all that much of the worldwide CO2 budget.

I reckon that burning all the trees worldwide would actually lower the earth's temperatures. We humans are spewing out vast amounts of CO2, multiple times as much as burning all the trees will ever produce. But when you burn all the forests you'll throw up a lot of ash and soot into the upper atmosphere and thus create a volcanic winter (though caused by forest fires this time).

Trees trap moisture close to the ground and retain moisture by increasing turbulence in the watershed. If you remove trees you will add to global warming over land, which is where the earth heats the most. While there is much more carbon in coal and carbonates, the loss of forest could markedly change the climate of the Southern Hemisphere including the frequency and severity of ENSO.

[78stonewobble]

Come on guys ... be realistic ... There isn't enough marshmallows to roast for that...

[michaelsteele3]

Let's burn down the Earth's forests!

My first thought:

"Yea! *singing* We're going to jaaaill! We're going to jaaailll!

[Aanker]

CO2 has been much higher in the past, yet the Earth (and life) endured.

One interesting theory I saw regarding Venus especially was that the lack of an adequate magnetic shield would have let lighter elements - including hydrogen and oxygen - escape into space, whereas heavier molecules like carbon dioxide remained. Thus with time, potential carbon dioxide sinks like oceans disappeared due to the combined effect of heat applied to the surface and the lack of shielding from the sun.

[KerikBalm]

Earth will end up like venus one day... the sub grows increasingly brighter... We've got about half a billion years left, more or less.

If humans are still around (though likely having highly diverged... but we'd still be around in the sense that synapsids are still around... I digress), they'd have the capacity to make that "more" or make that "less"

[Aanker]

Although I'm no expert on the subject, I don't think it's just about the sun, or where we are in orbit.

You would have to look at the cumulative picture of the strength of the magnetosphere, how vigorous plate tectonics would be, the adaptability of life on the planet to compensate for changes in radiation etc.

[magnemoe]

CO2 has been much higher in the past, yet the Earth (and life) endured.

One interesting theory I saw regarding Venus especially was that the lack of an adequate magnetic shield would have let lighter elements - including hydrogen and oxygen - escape into space, whereas heavier molecules like carbon dioxide remained. Thus with time, potential carbon dioxide sinks like oceans disappeared due to the combined effect of heat applied to the surface and the lack of shielding from the sun.

Why don't Venus have an magnetic shield? Is it because it rotate so slow?

Don't know about CO2 levels however both oxygen level and temperature has been higher earlier so its make sense CO2 was higher. And no it did not hurt the biosphere was more active and larger.

[Aanker]

Why don't Venus have an magnetic shield? Is it because it rotate so slow?

Don't know about CO2 levels however both oxygen level and temperature has been higher earlier so its make sense CO2 was higher. And no it did not hurt the biosphere was more active and larger.

This is said with the reservation that I am not familiar entirely with Venus' history and most is based on what I've heard or read on multiple occasions. Either Venus rotates too slowly, perhaps as a result of an impact at an angle early in its history that effectively de-spun the planet, or there is limited to no convection in Venus' core. The latter could be either because the entirety of the interior of Venus is too molten and uniformly hot to prevent any meaningful convection currents from forming (as in - for instance - there is no way for heat to escape near the crust, so no mantle material gets cooled, and so nothing falls back down) or because the core is actually solid. In the first scenario, plate tectonics on Earth have ensured that there is always a way for the built-up heat in the planet's interior to escape, whereas on Venus, the thick atmosphere and lack of oceans may have prevented plate tectonics altogether - thus trapping heat.

One interesting theory that I came across building on this genesis of Venus' greenhouse effect is that the lack of ventilation through the crust actually leads to cyclic global resurfacing events. Basically, the molten interior of the planet eats away through the crust until it erupts through massive lava flows. Since that cools off the mantle somewhat, it takes a while before the cycle repeats again.

PS. Here's one study on the subject (it's old but I couldn't be bothered to search for too long ) http://www.google.se/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEUQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.astro.queensu.ca%2F~tjb%2Fhet618%2Fnathan%2F94JE00388.pdf&ei=gsrTVOvPCpLUoATr_ILQDw&usg=AFQjCNGzdp2pSs-FeH3hO8GlCwkLp5-W1A

Edited February 5, 2015 by Aanker

[FreeThinker]

Even though the effect of forest is not very big on atmospheric oxygen, it goes have a significant effect on soil, moisture and bio diversity quality