Will planting more trees help absorb more co2?

Question

Even if we did plant a bizzillion trees how would the co2 in the UPER atmospheres come down to be absorbed? can we wave a tree up there and say it's a sponge get in you dirty co2 *****!

I am a skeptic and even planting trees sound stupid to me!

Answer 1

I just want to add, one of the highest Green house gas is water vapor.

[also at night, trees and other plants release small amounts of Co2 ]

Higher temperatures are one way that help molucules combine, Co2 may only be higher in count becuase of the natural raise in temerature. [ the other way around of peoples thinking ]

Just something to think about...

Answer 2

Id say a faster method would be to make more of those co2 absorbing stations. But yeah, trees would help but you wouldent want to plant too much or we could pull another ice age.

Answer 3

Planting trees or cutting trees down doesn't effect atmospheric CO2 as much as the companies selling carbon credits claim it does.

Environmentalists have talked about the Amazon being the lungs of the Earth as if it is responsible for taking CO2 out of the air, but as the biomass of the Amazon is not increasing, the amount of CO2 that the Amazon absorbes is actually zero.  

Trees do absorbe CO2 when they are growing and they return this CO2 to the atmosphere when they die.

If we wanted to reduce atmospheric CO2, we could cut down trees and bury them in deep land fills.  This idea does not make people feel good and in order to be sucessful, environmentalism should make people feel smug and morally superior.

Answer 4

Planting trees will help but it can't be used to solve the AGW problem because most of the Earth is covered by water and most of the CO2  is absorbed by the oceans (phytoplankton, algae, etc - this is where most of the oxygen comes from).  Trees have a significant influences on regional weather and climate - especially precipitation patterns.  This is extremly important for ecosystem balances.

Also, the part about gases in the upper atmosphere coming down.  The atmosphere is composed of many layers, and gases in the the one next to the ground (troposphere)  don't easily move to the stratosphere (the layer above the troposphere).  Concentrations on the troposphere are controlled somewhat by the "weight" of the gas, but also by the concentration.  An equilibrium is established and if the concentration is reduced in one area, areas with higher concentrations around it will "donate" CO2 molecules until things are in balance again.  So planting trees anywhere will ultimately help somewhat.  Besides, there are lots of other benefits to planting trees.

Answer 5

Michael - Yes a bizzillion trees would absorb the CO2 out of the atmosphere.

However, it should be a combinations of things.

First of all we should plant trees, since young trees actually absorb more CO2 than mature trees do, since the growing process slows down when a tree matures.

The other thing is we need to cultivate and grow this ancient creature:

http://www.sharkbay.org/default.aspx?Web...

http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci102...

http://goaustralia.about.com/od/wa/f/str...

Answer 6

Yes, more of any vegetation will absorb CO2.

What you don't seem to understand is that all gases distribute evenly, no matter what the weights of the gas molecules are.

This would not change things however.

CO2 is the heaviest of all the gas molecules within the first 7 miles or so of the earth's surface, at 44 it is roughly 1.4 times heavier than oxygen at 32.

The only heavier gas is ozone, at 48 which is only found within this region at 0.000004% or 0.01%  by volume of CO2.

Above this level ozone is found in much greater levels.

The reason being that natural ozone is produced in the stratosphere(ozonosphere) by a portion of the sun's ultraviolet radiation.

Ozone(O3) is a very unstable gas which once created, begins to sink, and as soon as it comes in contact with any organic material, or unburned hydrocarbon like CO, it releases the excess oxygen atom to once again form the stable (O2), and in the case of CO would form CO2, both of which now become stable gases.

An interesting side note is that ozone is a blue gas and is believed to be the reason that the sky is blue.

While I am also labelled as a 'skeptic' I do understand some basic science.

I still find your question interesting, but you should explain that the 0.054% that you refer to, should be clarified as a percentage by weight and NOT volume of the atmosphere.

You should also take a little time, and use spell check, before submitting a question.

Otherwise, you leave yourself vulnerable to justified ridicule, and lack of credibility.

Yours is far from being the worst that I have seen however.

A couple of final points that I do need to make is that CO2 is not a problem, and has nothing to do with the 'theory' of so-called 'Global Warming', or is a threat of any kind!

Without CO2 there would be NO life on this planet!

Even at 20% concentration, which is the maximum that it could ever achieve, would have NO influence on weather of any kind.

This is all just a big 'circle jerk' scam, which needs to be stopped!

It has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with money!

Good Luck!

We are all going to suffer at the hands of the few demented people in the name of 'Science', when this has nothing to do with science whatsoever!

If there was no money to be made out of this scam, it never would have gone as far as it has!

Answer 7

Michael, I do wish - sincerely - that you spent a little bit of time trying to understand the science before putting your 'skeptic' blinkers on; many of the 'questions' you ask can be answered with basic science.

That said, I will try once again to try and educate you (but you need to be open to the knowledge...).

The atmosphere circulates. We can feel part of that circulation system as wind. This is how the CO2 got into the upper atmosphere in the first place - the same mechanism will bring it back down again.

On top of that is basic diffusion - fluids (and air is a fluid) in particular are good at equalising unbalanced distributions - if you put hot water into a cool bath, the whole bath warms up, the hot water doesn't just sit in one place.

As the CO2 gets removed at ground level, the concentration of CO2 will be lower near the ground then higher up - CO2 molecules will diffuse down providing a constant new stream of CO2 towards the ground.

Answer 8

I'm skeptical of you, and even asking this question "sound stupid to me!"

Plants, as part of the process of photosynthesis, absorb CO2 and release O2 (oxygen), among other things. So yes, planting more trees will "absorb" more CO2 (or redistribute the Carbon atoms into sugar and fiber, leaving us with oxygen gas).

Gases in the atmosphere continually cycle. It can be a slow process getting gas from the outer atmosphere down into the height region where forests grow, but there is an exchange, mostly based on density of the gas, which is largely affected by temperature. Let the CO2 cool down = it drops down to a lower height.

50% of the air in the Earth's atmosphere is contained within the first few hundred feet off the ground, meaning that a sufficient number of trees could break up a significant amount of CO2, regardless of what's in the upper levels of the atmosphere.

We don't really want there to be no CO2 in the atmosphere anyway, so there's no real problem here.

Answer 9

Yes this would work--- if they stopped cutting down or burning the amazon jungle to make ETHANOL!