PUBLIC MARKS from paleorthid with tag "climate change"

Most soil scientists agree with the unvalidated concept that soil carbon levels will likely decline in step with temperature increases. Higher biological activity will result in more decomposition of organic matter. One certainly sees a similar relationship between soil carbon and temperature when comparing the effect of elevation, aspect and latitude. That we have yet to validate it is telling.

Research shows that invasive earthworms are damaging forest soils and are a menace to species diversity. The problem is most often associated with formerly glaciated regions, where native populations of earthworms are not present. Comparing soil in front of the invaders to post invasion conditions demonstrates that these worms cause soil compaction, reduced soil fertility, and increased erosion. It appears that these invaders are capable of alterations deep enough into the soil profile to result in a change in soil taxonomic classification at the order level. Other concerns are damage to rhizosphere functions, impairing soil carbon sequestration capacity.

Over the course of an eight-year open-top-chamber CO2-enrichment (to twice ambient concentrations) study of a pristine (annually burned) tallgrass prairie north of Manhattan, Kansas, USA, which was composed of a mixture of C3 and C4 species, Williams et al. measured changes in the active, slow and passive pools of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), with the goal of determining how they were impacted by the doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration of their reasonably long-term experiment.

Web site discusses science in support of using grassland to sequester atmospheric carbon.

comment: heartburn over an expectation that the scientific community has promoted that leads us to believe that we can create a significant, persistent sink of carbon by using established farming and forestry approaches.

The Carbon Coalition started out among growers in the Central West Catchment Management Authority's Farm Systems training program in New South Wales and is expanding to cover Australia and other parts of the globe. The Coalition is a not-for-profit organisation that runs like a business, with the express aim of securing a central role for soil carbon in the credit trading schemes emerging around Greenhouse Gas Emissions abatement. Co-convenors are the Kiely family, woolgrowers from Goolma, NSW.