Planet Earth Adjusts Over Time to Recycle CO2 -- Planetary Rainforests Grow and Gobble Greenhouse Gases at Record Rates

It makes sense that atmospheric CO2 concentrations would rise as more CO2 is added to the air -- even the relatively small proportions of CO2 coming from humans. But the planet's rainforests are growing -- pushing back against human encroachment. And they are getting hungry, Hungry, HUNGRY! for CO2. Higher CO2 concentrations are spurring the growth of new jungles across the tropics. And these jungles are crying out "FEEED MMEEEEE!!!"

Africa's tropical forests have stored huge amounts of carbon over the last four decades and become a critical sponge for greenhouse gases, according to a study published Thursday.

Long-term measurements taken across the continent's tropical belt showed that African forests absorb as much carbon dioxide as those in the Amazon.

Tropical forests only account for seven-to-ten percent of the Earth's land area. But they hold up to half of the carbon locked inside the planet's terrestrial vegetation, giving them an outsized role in regulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

...Two dozen international researchers led by Simon Lewis of the University of Leeds in northern England pulled together data from 79 monitoring plots scattered across 10 countries in western and central Africa.

Sifting through the data, the scientists found that the region's rain forests had pumped progressively more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as trees underwent photosynthesis and grew.

The average increase was almost identical to those for Amazonia, a net plus of 630 kilos per hectare each year between 1967 and 2007, reported the study, published in the British science journal Nature.

The question, then, is why these tropical forests are continuing to draw down ever more CO2....

"Perhaps the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is effectively fertilizing tropical tree growth," speculated Muller-Landau.

"With adequate protection, these forests are likey to remain large carbon stores in the longer term," they wrote. _TerraDaily

Of course extra CO2 fertilises tropical tree growth. A scientist should understand these things, since they have been studied ad nauseum over several decades.

With rapid urbanisation occurring even in the primitive societies of the tropics, more and more previously farmed areas will revert to forest -- even in the face of biofuels-motivated cultivation of palm plantations. The longer oil prices remain low, the more progress that researchers in microbial biofuels will make in devising alternative methods of making biofuels from biomass -- for example using algae that are fertilised by CO2 from coal plants.

For a far better understanding of CO2 than anything you will get from the mainstream media or from the climate zombies, check out CO2 Science. For the best understanding of the effect of CO2 on oceans, go to Sea Friends' special treatment of the topic.

We are living through a disastrous convergence of the climate zombies and the Obama zombies. The news and entertainment media is rife with the rot-brained buggers, as are social science faculties of universities. Remember, if they come for you, you absolutely must aim for the head! ;-)