Trees Emit Methane: Study
Odisha Sun Times (April 3, 2017)

Upland forest soils usually take up and store methane, but this effect can be counteracted by methane emissions from tree trunks, the research team found.

Because of methane’s global warming potential, identifying the sources and “sinks” or storehouses of this greenhouse gas is critical for measuring and understanding its implications across ecosystems.

The new findings, published in the journal Ecosystems, represent a new, previously unaccounted source of this powerful greenhouse gas.

“We believe our work can help fill in some gaps in methane budgets and environmental processes in global ecosystem models,” said the study’s leader Rodrigo Vargas, Assistant Professor at University of Delaware in Newark, US.

In a 30-acre area of upland forest in the US, the researchers tested a cluster of trees, soil and coarse woody debris (CWD) — dead wood lying on the forest floor in various stages of decomposition — to measure fluxes of methane and carbon dioxide.

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