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Rate of tree carbon accumulation increases continuously with tree size

N. L. Stephenson, A. J. Das, R. Condit

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S. E. Russo, P. J. Baker, N. G. Beckman, D. A. Coomes, E. R. Lines, W. K. Morris, N. Rüger, E. Álvarez, C. Blundo, S. Bunyavejchewin, G. Chuyong, S. J. Davies, Á. Duque, C. N. Ewango, O. Flores, J. F. Franklin, H. R. Grau, Z. Hao, M. E. Harmon, S. P. Hubbell, D. Kenfack, Y. Lin, J.-R. Makana, A. Malizia, L. R. Malizia, R. J. Pabst, N. Pongpattananurak, S.-H. Su, I-F. Sun, S. Tan, D. Thomas, P. J. van Mantgem, X. Wang, S. K. Wiser, M. A. Zavala

2014 · Nature

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Original HN comments, with labels from simple text rules. A label describes the whole comment and may miss context or irony. Read the discussion to make up your own mind. About the labels

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pineaux
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I don't agree with this claim. It is only intuitive on the surface. But growth in trees does not slow down as they get older. It actually accelerates. This article corroborates that: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12914 Sickness and bad conditions usually slow growth down. In tree farms almost all the trees are in bad condition. The low biodiversity creates a low quality environment. They catch fire very easily. It's low quality wood that ends up in a landfill (and then in the air via rotting) within a few decades. Eventually a tree will get sick and die. The most ideal situation would be to harvest the tree when it's dead. I would think there could be a…
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businessmodel that maps dead trees and extracts them from forrests for high quality old growth wood. This is not about "stubborn environmentalism". Although I do agree with you that some environmentalist ideas are a bit short sighted (like dismissing all nuclear options without weighing the properly), it is generally based in science and research. The anti-environmentalist side are usually mostly based in money and corporate interests...
Original comment US Forest Service proposes protections for old-growth trees, without logging ban
gregwebs
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This research states that old growth forests continue to sink carbon and as I understand it actually sink more carbon than new growth: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12914 It's not what I had expected. Maybe there's a problem with the research, but I think everyone just assumed that new growth was better without studying the issue carefully.
Original comment The Canadian government's plan to plant two billion trees
throwaway5752
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No - a large tree grows at lower rates, but puts on much more mass (sequesters much more carbon) per year. edit: see figure 6 in https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal..., for example. And http://science.time.com/2014/01/15/study-shows-older-trees-a... (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12914) specifically for redwoods. Key quote: "at the extreme, a single big tree can add the same amount of carbon to the forest within a year as is contained in an entire mid-sized tree"
Original comment Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
szemet
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> The growth rate of trees slows down over time. No, it is accelerating - according to this study in Nature [2]. "reviewed records from forest studies on six continents, involving 673,046 individual trees and more than 400 species...97% of the species surveyed, the mass growth rate—literally, the amount of tree in the tree—kept increasing even as the individual tree got older and taller" [1] "for most species mass growth rate increases continuously with tree size. Thus, large, old trees do not act simply as senescent carbon reservoirs but actively fix large amounts of carbon compared to smaller trees; at the extreme, a single big tree can add the same amount of carbon to the forest within a year as is contained in an entire mid-sized tree" [2] [1] http://science.time.com/2014/01/15/study-shows-older-trees-a... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12914
Original comment The Planet Now Has More Trees Than It Did 35 Years Ago

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