Soil Contributes to Global Warming

[wulf]

I saw an interesting story on the Guardian site today. Apparently, increased temperatures are causing the soil to release more carbon dioxide, thus speeding the rate at which temperatures increase!

I wonder if anything could be done to limit this, such as agricultural practises that leave less bare soil exposed. Anyone an expert or care to hazard an idea or two?

Wulf

[ina]

This is spooky - I've just spent the entire day researching the subject "climate change, agriculture and the environment in Scotland" - and now this! I don't get the Guardian, so thanks for the link, I'll have to look into that. Scotland has even more of a problem that way, the peaty soils here store a lot more carbon...

I've neither time nor the inclination at the moment to write more on the subject - still have some work to do - but I'll let you know more soon!

Ina

[wulf]

I don't get the Guardian either... I just make a daily check of GoogleNews and pick one or two stories that look interesting.

Wulf

[cyndeelouwho1972]

www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5
GO to this article, really good read

[ina]

I wonder if anything could be done to limit this, such as agricultural practises that leave less bare soil exposed. Anyone an expert or care to hazard an idea or two?

Wulf

Well, I'm still no expert, but this publication has made things even more difficult for us... It's really hard to get reliable data on emissions and sinks as it is, the methods of measuring them seem to change ever so often, and now we've got another factor to consider!

I've had a look round, but can't come up with any groundbreaking ideas. The problem with these results is, that the loss was on all kinds of land - so the fact that it was worked or not, that there was forest or nothing growing doesn't seem to have as important a role as had been thought before. As a consequence of this, there seems to be not as much we can do as we'd like to....

OK, it'll still be better to have trees growing than nothing, and to have no-till or low-till methods rather than deep ploughing on a regular basis, but the part of the carbon release that is triggered by temperature - maybe we should apply ice cubes on the land. But that would cause more greenhouse gases through running the freezers...

Seriously, it just shows that we have less time even than the pessimists have always thought. And today I heard something on Radio 4, one of those folk getting all worked up about higher petrol prices - lets think about the environment tomorrow, there's still plenty of time for that, we need our petrol today !!! How can people be so short sighted?

Sorry I can't be of more help. Sometimes I wish I'd paid more attention in our chemistry lessons .

Ina

[ina]

Found a good brochure that gives sa summary of all sorts of aspects of climate change...

http://www.meto.gov.uk/research/hadleyc ... brochures/

and click on "Avoiding dangerous climate change".

Ina

[Wombat]

Ina,

The problem with no till is the use of (oil based) pre-emergent herbicides, but I suppose you can't have everything!

Nev

[ina]

Yes, I know - that's why it's not my preferred method, either. But there are ways of reducing tilling. Learned something yesterday - ever heard of "mounding" as opposed to ploughing? It's a method applied in forestry, before planting trees. Instead of turning the entire soil over, they just, well, "mound" (still not quite sure how they do it, I'd have to see it). They reckon it only shifts half as much soil as ploughing would, and it's just as effective before planting new trees.

And if more under-sowing was used to keep weeds down, I am sure less tilling would be necessary on arable land, too, even on organic land (organics do, of course, use more under-sowing and green manure anyway, which is all to the good).

Ina