Biome carbon cycle management

[Reality Check]

You missed from the same study right after your quote,

What is right after my quote is the following (to the end of the paragraph):

Nevertheless, grasslands are not as impressive in biomass as tropical rain forests, nor in soil C content as high-latitude peats (Hall et al. 2000). Biomass and productivity increase steadily with mean annual rainfall, culminating in tropical rain forests (Franzemeier et al. 1985; McGuire et al. 1992; Mellilo et al. 1993). C storage in soils also increases with inhibition of decomposition by stagnation or low Temperature, culminating in high-latitude swamps and tundra (Sellers et al. 1997). There is evidence from paleosols and paleobotany for rain forest (Retallack and Germa´n-Heins 1994) and high-latitude swamps and tundra (Retallack 1999; Retallack and Krull 1999) as far back as the Carboniferous, and these ecosystems have been important players in global change since that time. Grasslands were the new ecosystems of the Cenozoic.

Your quote is in the next paragraph.

"Grasslands have only about one-sixth the biomass of woodlands, but the biomass is dwarfed by an order of magnitude more C in grassland soils."

Your conclusions are likewise skewed for this reason. Don't feel bad. You are not the only one to miss it. Most the calculations that give ridiculously small numbers to the potential C sequestration in grassland soils also are an order of magnitude off. The soil, especially the grassland soils, are many times larger a carbon sink, and for potentially much longer, than any short term sequestration in biomass. In fact the sink is much larger than all the C in the atmosphere. The only trick is the rate of sequestration. With conventional Ag the rate is actually negative. In other words conventional Ag is an emissions source. But we farmers can do far better than that. 1 ton per acre per year is pretty conservative if you know what you are doing, and all you need to average is ~ 1/4 ton +/- per acre per year improvement over whatever current agricultural system is in use to offset net yearly C emissions. I believe that is doable based on anecdotal evidence. Need more published and peer reviewed studies on a wider range of agricultural soils and regions to be sure though.[/QUOTE]

 

[Trakar]

Here is a better source for the paper "Cenozoic Expansion of Grasslands and Climatic Cooling." - http://blogs.uoregon.edu/gregr/files/2013/07/grasslandscooling-nhslkh.pdf

 

[Red Baron Farms]

The point is that if you are going to use Biomimicry to sequester carbon in agricultural soils countering AGW, you need to clearly define and understand the biological system that is sequestering the most carbon in those soils and forcing climatic cooling. That's why this paper is important.

The natural biological system is impossible to get back. Most the animals are extinct and all the huge herds are extirpated world wide except for a few areas of Africa. But it is possible to mimic the lost biomes with livestock. The studies claiming at most 10% reduction in atmospheric C are based on keeping the current industrial models of agriculture largely intact. Just a few small modifications. They are not based on changing the agricultural models with biomimicry. Permaculture and HM are radically different than the current industrial models of agriculture. They also have far greater potential for improving the carbon cycle, orders of magnitude greater. Because they understand the importance of the carbon cycle in the soil, which is an order of magnitude greater than the C in biomass, even the biomass of tropical rain forests.

Further, high latitude peat bogs are in permafrost areas, not land suitable for agriculture. And the biomass of the tropical rain forests while impressive, is dwarfed by the C in temperate grassland soils by an order of magnitude. But most those soils are highly degraded by agriculture. So there is your potential for biome carbon cycle management, our farmland.

“As the small trickle of results grows into an avalanche — as is now happening overseas — it will soon be realized that the animal is our farming partner and no practice and no knowledge which ignores this fact will contribute anything to human welfare or indeed will have any chance either of usefulness or of survival.” Sir Albert Howard

 

[Red Baron Farms]

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/soil_as_carbon_storehouse_new_weapon_in_climate_fight/2744/

Thank you Mac

When you combine this quote:

The world’s cultivated soils have lost 50 to 70 percent of their original carbon stock.

With this quote:

Scientists say that more carbon resides in soil than in the atmosphere and all plant life combined; there are 2,500 billion tons of carbon in soil, compared with 800 billion tons in the atmosphere and 560 billion tons in plant and animal life. And compared to many proposed geoengineering fixes, storing carbon in soil is simple: It’s a matter of returning carbon where it belongs.

You can easily see how important it really is.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

double post

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Macdoc posted a great link for an article from the Yale School of Forestry
& Environmental Studies explaining it better on the other thread. I think it belongs here as well: Soil as Carbon Storehouse:
New Weapon in Climate Fight?

Even at our current level of knowledge, many see great potential for storing carbon in soil. Lal of Ohio State says that restoring soils of degraded and desertified ecosystems has the potential to store in world soils an additional 1 billion to 3 billion tons of carbon annually, equivalent to roughly 3.5 billion to 11 billion tons of CO2 emissions. (Annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning are roughly 32 billion tons.)

Many call Lal’s carbon soil storage figures low. This could reflect the fact that soil carbon is generally measured in the top 15 to 30 centimeters, whereas soil at depth may store carbon at much higher rates. For example, in land with deep-rooted grasses the soil can go down five meters or more. Research by Australian and British scientists published last year in the journal Plant and Soil examined soils in five southwestern Australia sites at depths as great as nearly 40 meters. These findings add impetus to explore strategies such as working with deep-rooted perennial grasses to secure carbon at depth.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Thank you Mac

When you combine this quote:

With this quote:


You can easily see how important it really is.

Soils, unite! You're strong!

...and there are between 15,000 and 22,000 in the oceans, and those are equally difficult to rise than soil's.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Soils, unite! You're strong!

...and there are between 15,000 and 22,000 in the oceans, and those are equally difficult to rise than soil's.

Luckily the fix for the soils also helps the oceans to do there part more efficiently. Part of the unexpected side benefits! Cleaning up the land helps clean up the waterways!

"Supply-side approaches, centered on CO2 sources, amount to reshuffling the Titanic deck chairs if we overlook demand-side solutions: where that carbon can and should go," says Thomas J. Goreau, a biogeochemist and expert on carbon and nitrogen cycles who now serves as president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance. Goreau says we need to seek opportunities to increase soil carbon in all ecosystems — from tropical forests to pasture to wetlands — by replanting degraded areas, increased mulching of biomass instead of burning, large-scale use of biochar, improved pasture management, effective erosion control, and restoration of mangroves, salt marshes, and sea grasses.

"When we have erosion, we lose soil, which carries with it organic carbon, into waterways.

But also caries pollutants from agriculture there as well.

And what does that cause? Damage to reefs and other "dead zones".

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20120621_deadzone.html

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/gc2sec7labgroup3/pollution

It's all connected.

 

[macdoc]

RB don't thank me for your flights of fancy. Soil management has a role to play but what's stored there already is to large degree irrelevant to the current situation since it took 10k + years to accumulate since the last ice age and any significant melt in taiga/tundra would see a significant release of methane largely or completely offsetting managed sequestration.

It all helps, but it's no panacea.

We've been over that and you have at least two other threads on it. Let's stick to the climate science in this thread and agree in passing it is one factor in a panalopy of factors.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Luckily the fix for the soils also helps the oceans to do there part more efficiently. Part of the unexpected side benefits! Cleaning up the land helps clean up the waterways!

No, they don't, there's no feedback there. You're just interpreting everything through the pink crystal of your i-love-soil glasses. It's call epistemological hedonism and it's exactly what denialists do. The accidental fact that you have one foot on the other side of the "debate" doesn't absolve your errors. It's the thought that counts, as they say

 

[Red Baron Farms]

No, they don't, there's no feedback there. You're just interpreting everything through the pink crystal of your i-love-soil glasses. It's call epistemological hedonism and it's exactly what denialists do. The accidental fact that you have one foot on the other side of the "debate" doesn't absolve your errors. It's the thought that counts, as they say

You think so. But you are wrong. At least according to all the scientists that study the reasons for our losses of coral reefs, salt marshes, sea grasses, etc.... all of which are important biological carbon sinks in our oceans. Coral reefs are particularly important, because reef-building organisms secrete metastable forms of CaCO3, but the biogeochemical consequences on other calcifying marine ecosystems may be equally severe, as is the loss of seagrasses. I did link solid sources for that damage being in large part to our current agricultural practises.

The results suggested a casual link between agricultural pollution, low coral biodiversity, and poor re-colonization of the reef. An example from there experiment is that hard coral biodiversity were in greater abundance, almost double, on reefs that were far from agricultural areas than the reefs that were closer. There was also found to be a relationship that as coral cover and biodiversity decreased as the dose of pollutants increased. (Nowak, 2003) Overall this research has led to the conclusion that farming in this area and the pesticides and fertilizers used are a major health risk for the coral and biodiversity of the reefs.

 

[aleCcowaN]

You think so. But you are wrong. At least according to all the scientists that study the reasons for our losses of coral reefs, salt marshes, sea grasses, etc.... all of which are important biological carbon sinks in our oceans. Coral reefs are particularly important, because reef-building organisms secrete metastable forms of CaCO3, but the biogeochemical consequences on other calcifying marine ecosystems may be equally severe, as is the loss of seagrasses. I did link solid sources for that damage being in large part to our current agricultural practises.

You just took my original post and apply your magic wand to change it into a different one. Soils as carbon sink don't help the oceans as carbon sink. What are you going to do know? Pretend that I said a different thing and start replying to that imaginary topic? You're basically talking to yourself, pal.

I used to think soils played a fundamental role in solving our climate related crisis, and I can point to casual posts of mine doing so, many years ago. Later, while studying the subject in the context of taxation -modifying what here is called something like "tax on land before improvement and investment"- as a means of promoting good soil use, I found out it wasn't such a good way, though it has good reasons to be promoted -as it also is the use of cement with low CO2 emissions-. The last bit of that conviction of mine, you took it away with your constant spamming of the subject in here and you're inability to give any numeric and systemic justification to your only-supported-by-adjectives exaggerations and your systematic avoidance of the topic "how mankind is gonna feed itself" -or replacing that with more wild fantasies-. In fact, arguing with you I found my way almost out of the notion and that is your achievement, and only yours.

You basically took something that is extremely good on a local scale and towards the repair of ecosystems, and got it transformed into snake oil, with your constant it-heals-everything preach.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

You just took my original post and apply your magic wand to change it into a different one. Soils as carbon sink don't help the oceans as carbon sink. What are you going to do know? Pretend that I said a different thing and start replying to that imaginary topic? You're basically talking to yourself, pal.

Absolutely wrong 100% Using soils as carbon sink do help the oceans as carbon sink! It's a positive feedback with a direct casual linkage! The obverse is also true. Soils as a C emissions source hurts oceans as a sink. It's a negative feedback. Again, a direct casual link. Why? Because the same root problem that has changed our soils from a sink into an emissions source, and could potentially be changed back to a sink again, is largely agriculture.

I used to think soils played a fundamental role in solving our climate related crisis, and I can point to casual posts of mine doing so, many years ago. Later, while studying the subject in the context of taxation -modifying what here is called something like "tax on land before improvement and investment"- as a means of promoting good soil use, I found out it wasn't such a good way, though it has good reasons to be promoted -as it also is the use of cement with low CO2 emissions-. The last bit of that conviction of mine, you took it away with your constant spamming of the subject in here and you're inability to give any numeric and systemic justification to your only-supported-by-adjectives exaggerations and your systematic avoidance of the topic "how mankind is gonna feed itself" -or replacing that with more wild fantasies-. In fact, arguing with you I found my way almost out of the notion and that is your achievement, and only yours.

You basically took something that is extremely good on a local scale and towards the repair of ecosystems, and got it transformed into snake oil, with your constant it-heals-everything preach.

I never said it heals everything. Besides, I could be the most hated man on the planet and it wouldn't change the science one bit. I am a farmer, not a diplomat or politician. I could give a damn if you like me or not. You should feel the same. That's one of the biggest fails in critical thinking or skepticism I ever heard in my whole life. The very idea that AGW is a popularity contest! Sheesh. What are you are really upset about?

PS I absolutely NEVER avoided the question of "how mankind is gonna feed itself" - because the same things actually produce MORE food. I have posted many studies proving it.
Here is just 4 on Humus and HLS that show a benefit to plant growth.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960852407007092
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038071702001748
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1164556306000379
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960852402000172

 

[aleCcowaN]

Absolutely wrong 100% Using soils as carbon sink do help the oceans as carbon sink! It's a positive feedback with a direct casual linkage! The obverse is also true. Soils as a C emissions source hurts oceans as a sink. It's a negative feedback. Again, a direct casual link. Why? Because the same root problem that has changed our soils from a sink into an emissions source, and could potentially be changed back to a sink again, is largely agriculture.

And it is so because your wishful thinking declares it to be so.

I never said it heals everything. Besides, I could be the most hated man on the planet and it wouldn't change the science one bit. I am a farmer, not a diplomat or politician. I could give a damn if you like me or not. You should feel the same. That's one of the biggest fails in critical thinking or skepticism I ever heard in my whole life. The very idea that AGW is a popularity contest! Sheesh. What are you are really upset about?

PS I absolutely NEVER avoided the question of "how mankind is gonna feed itself" - because the same things actually produce MORE food. I have posted many studies proving it.

You're bad for analogies, aren't you? And you're changing the subject once again. And filling the blanks with more wishful thinking.

Of course it isn't a popularity contest -in such a case we both would be tied at the last position-. It's a matter of wishful thinking against critical thinking: you repeat yourself once an again and that won't make anything you say less unreal. Of course you're a farmer, it shows: You haven't posted any study proving your assertions and your evidence have been only your wild extrapolations departing from papers -generally bad ones- dealing with each specific topic in its fringes. If it's good for you it is good for everyone. That is your discursive strategy, and it has you repeating yourself and trying to start everything all over again, like now, what a surprise.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

If it's good for you it is good for everyone. That is your discursive strategy

Solving AGW is good for everybody.

 

[aleCcowaN]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960852407007092

First in the list. Let's analyse your modus operandi:

You googled in despair looking for anything to throw into the debate, and come out with a paper that:

• You probably haven't read. If you have read it, quote the first three lines in the conclusion, original language or English version. Here is some help: it starts with "Within..."
• It deals with humic-like substances derived from sawdust by chemical procedure.
• The maize was grown using hydroponic cultures.
• Growth was compared with standards on soil and considered good.
• No figures of productivity, as corncobs weren't grown.
• Nothing about "soils as carbon sinks" and "mankind can be fed in a context of rising carbon content in agricultural soils" in it. Nothing at all.
• Your wild extrapolations, from your sloppy and wishful reading of the paper, is "humus is good for maize, hence full stomachs, happy hearts"

Shall I continue with the other three papers? Be aware it goes downhill.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Solving AGW is good for everybody.

What does this platitude contribute to the matter at hand? and, how does it relate with what I was saying?

 

[Reality Check]

The point is that if you are going to use Biomimicry to sequester carbon in agricultural soils countering AGW, ....

Most people agree that there is potential to sequester carbon in agricultural soils in amounts that would counter AGW at least partially.
Few people think that this potential includes the ability to stop AGW entirely.

Look at what you quote from Soil as Carbon Storehouse: New Weapon in Climate Fight?.
We emit roughly 32 billion tons annually.
Restoration could store roughly 3.5 billion to 11 billion tons of CO2 emissions annually.
That is 10% to 33%. So we are a factor of 10 to 3 out from a soil solution to AGW.

We could go almost mono-culture and convert the world's grasslands to Australian grasslands with their deep-rooted grasses. This is basically the opposite of holistic management which includes working with the existing ecosystem and adding diversity.

ETA: Other issues are that our emissions are increasing, that there is a limit to how much carbon can be sequestered (no more than 100% soil organic material , soil depth is not unlimited) and no one is sure of the economic impacts (e.g. what happens with the extra cattle implied in Savoy's HM?).

 

[Reality Check]

Cleaning up the land helps clean up the waterways!

Actually it depends, Red Baron Farms.
Just increasing cattle numbers on land actually harms waterways since extra urine and manure is added to the water. This is a big concern for cattle (especially dairy) farming here in NZ. There are some lakes experiencing algae blooms partially because of the pollution from cows.
You have to also add waterway management to your farming practices to "clean up" waterways. This means fencing off waterways and planting trees along them for stabilization.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Actually it depends, Red Baron Farms.
Just increasing cattle numbers on land actually harms waterways since extra urine and manure is added to the water. This is a big concern for cattle (especially dairy) farming here in NZ. There are some lakes experiencing algae blooms partially because of the pollution from cows.
You have to also add waterway management to your farming practices to "clean up" waterways. This means fencing off waterways and planting trees along them for stabilization.

Of course that is right! Absolutely need to be caring of riparian areas. But we are talking about replacing corn and soy with perennial pasture and restoring desertified land. A pasture grazed properly has far less leaching. The carbon and structure of the soil traps both the water and the nutrients in the soil, instead of runoff. If you do get water reaching the water, it has time to filter through the soil first, so it is cleaner.

Most people agree that there is potential to sequester carbon in agricultural soils in amounts that would counter AGW at least partially.
Few people think that this potential includes the ability to stop AGW entirely.

Look at what you quote from Soil as Carbon Storehouse: New Weapon in Climate Fight?.
We emit roughly 32 billion tons annually.
Restoration could store roughly 3.5 billion to 11 billion tons of CO2 emissions annually.
That is 10% to 33%. So we are a factor of 10 to 3 out from a soil solution to AGW.

We could go almost mono-culture and convert the world's grasslands to Australian grasslands with their deep-rooted grasses. This is basically the opposite of holistic management which includes working with the existing ecosystem and adding diversity.

ETA: Other issues are that our emissions are increasing, that there is a limit to how much carbon can be sequestered (no more than 100% soil organic material , soil depth is not unlimited) and no one is sure of the economic impacts (e.g. what happens with the extra cattle implied in Savoy's HM?).

That's significant don't you think? 10-33% and haven't even talked about reducing agricultural emissions yet? I believe I have seen somewhere around 18% of emissions attributed to agriculture. That could be right or wrong. I have no way of knowing. But if we reduce emissions a reasonable amount like 10% just from the agricultural sector alone, and then also sequester 10-33% ...we are starting to get somewhere. Then if the energy sector meets us in the agricultural sector 1/2 way........

And that's without stretching it to the higher amounts of sequestration some people are saying are possible by eliminating all cafos and the corn and soy fields that supply them 100%.

Your idea of monoculture with Australian grass is way wrong though. No need for that. The USA had some of the best deep rooted tallgrass prairie in the world. An ocean of grass taller than a man sitting on a horse, and roots meters deep. We have hundreds of native grasses and forbs that will do just fine. Not as familiar with other regions, but pretty sure there must be similar species all over. So you need to get monoculture right out of your head. It doesn't work in a monoculture anyway.