Department Of Energy Tells Scientists To Cut And Run

DURHAM, N.C. — For more than a decade, the federal government has spent millions of dollars pumping elevated levels of carbon dioxide into small groups of trees to test how forests will respond to global warming in the next 50 years.

Some scientists believe they are on the cusp of receiving key results from the time-consuming experiments.

The U.S. Department of Energy, however, which is funding the project, has told the scientists to chop down the trees, collect the data and move on to new research. That plan has upset some researchers who have spent years trying to understand how forests may help stave off global warming, and who want to keep the project going for at least a couple of more years.

"There has been an investment in these experiments and it's a shame we are going to walk away from that investment," said William Chameides, an atmospheric scientist at Duke University, where one of the experimental forests is located. "There is no question that ultimately we want to cut the trees down and analyze the soil. The question is whether now is the time to do it."

Ronald Neilson, a U.S. Forest Service bio-climatologist in Corvallis, Ore., said the experiments should continue because they still have potential to answer key questions about how rainfall and fertility affect how much carbon a forest will store long-term _ essential to understanding how forests may soften the blow of climate change.

But the Energy Department, following the advice of a specially convened panel of experts, believes that chopping down the trees and digging up the soil will allow the first real measurements of how much carbon the leaves, branches, trunks and roots have been storing, said J. Michael Kuperberg, a program manager with the agency.

Ending the experiments will also allow the funding to be devoted to new research that will look at the effects of higher temperatures, changes in rainfall, and variations in soil fertility, Kuperberg said.

"What we are trying to do here is balance the time to get optimal results out of the existing experiment with our desire for a new generation of experiments that we feel is more likely to realistically represent future climate scenarios," Kuperberg said.

Story continues below

advertisement

Some scientists, though, believe ending the long-term research may be a mistake.

"If we stop these experiments now, it could cost many years to get back to this point, time we may not have," Kevin Lee Griffin, associate professor of environmental sciences at Columbia University, wrote in an e-mail.

The research program, Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE), consists of rings of tall white plastic pipes with holes along their length that emit once-liquified carbon dioxide in carefully metered doses. The loblolly pines planted in 1983 at Duke in North Carolina are located behind gates several miles from campus. Carbon dioxide enrichment began in 1994.

There are also experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the Harshaw Experimental Forest in Wisconsin. The carbon dioxide levels around the trees are about 50 percent higher than current levels _ the amount expected 40 to 50 years from now.

The Department of Energy's Office of Biological & Environmental Research has informed those managing the experiments that their current research will be phased out by 2011. They are to get the definitive measurements on how tree growth, which represents stored carbon, was influenced, and should design new experiments to get rolling by 2012.

The panel found that the current experiments had a useful life of 10 to 12 years, and in a few more years the results would become invalid, in part because the trees were nearly taller than the pipes delivering the carbon dioxide.

Results so far indicate that elevated levels of carbon dioxide make forests grow more quickly, said Ram Oren, professor of ecology at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences and principal investigator on the experiments there.

But unless forests are on fertile ground _ hard to come by because of development _ growth will be in leaves, needles, and fine roots, which die off and decompose in a year or two, releasing the carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere, Oren said.

The Duke experiment recently began looking at fertility, and a couple of more years will give them better data on how forests react differently to drought and plentiful rainfall, he said.

"To stop an experiment that cost $55 million, $10 million before it reaches its real conclusion makes no sense to me," Oren said.

Rich Norby, who oversees the tree experiment at Oak Ridge, said he had thought it had run its course, but emerging trends indicate the new wood growth from increased carbon dioxide tapers off due to limitations of nitrogen _ fertilizer _ in the soil.

"This comes up in all sorts of long-term experiments _ when is the right time to say, `Enough,'" Norby said. "There's no good answer to that."

Comments

[shockmagog]

After January, the DOE will be operating under the auspices of the Obama administration. Perhaps, after further consideration, this experiment can be made to continue, while other experiments are started elsewhere. However, the article seems to outline some difficult pros and cons concerning whether to continue this particular experiment.

[ZellaBee]

All they care about is oil and do whatever they can to keep it flowing and keep the profits flowing. Now they are trying to stop global warming by spraying chemicals in the air, over our towns and cities and farmlands to reflect the sun to slow things down. Chem trails are everywhere now. Who knows what else they are spraying on us? They deny it of course.They are k!ll!ng us and our planet.

[darthdarcy]

More of Bush's Scorched Earth Policy...!

[CIgarCityGirl]

I can see Bible Spice crashing through that cracked open door with a power saw in her hand to cut down those gosh-darn trees! Why wait for 2012? Why do we need science anyway? We already have A book.

[joebaggadonuts]

Message to the scientists asked to cut and run: Stall for time. A new sheriff is coming to town. Don't do anything to hurt your results until after the inauguration and in the meantime send letters to the Obama team explaining your position. It may cost you your job until you get reinstated for doing the right thing. Best of luck to you. Thanks for all you do.

[sonofsamphm1c]

To be honest, a finding that increased CO2 makes a more vigorous forest would be used by deniers to stave off CO2 mitigation.

[AgeofReason]

These scientists must be on the cusp of learning too much. The results at this point must be damning to Bush Admin policies. The "specially convened panel of experts" are probably the same folks who designed Bush/Cheney energy policy. The scientists should take the government to court to keep the experiments running until THEY are certain that the time is right. I wasn't a conspiracy theorist until the Bush Administration perpetrated all these conspiracies on the American people!

[dadw5boys]

Russians are really worried about climate change. So much of their country is frozen part of the time. Now with WILD SWINGS IN TEMP the Preafrost melting and refreezing causing a lot of drainage into rives and steams. The water level rising along the coast .

Russia estimates major problems by 2030 in Russia with the water table of the oceans.

So go ahead and believe the USA bull. While the wealthy and religious groups buy up mountain land and higher altititude farm land. Then when the time comes and the water is lapping at your feet where you going to go .

[lauriemann]

Not to mention Alaska (not that it worries people like Palin), Greenland, and parts of Canada.

There are less dramatic example in parts of the Northeast United States. The ground used to freeze almost every winter in places like Western Pennsylvania. Now, it doesn't, and we sometimes get spring flowers up to a month earlier than we used to.

I think the CO2 experiment could use a little more time, and I hope the scientists are able to hold out until late January.

[crablover]

And once again, the Bushites will do anything they have to do to interfere with real scientists searching for real data. I can't wait until this government is once again in the hands of people who understand and respect science and scientists.

[westreal]

Unbelievable!