2020 Wildfires in Oregon and California

[Fuzz]

Just came across this which is a mashup of different AQ sensors from different sources.



https://fire.airnow.gov/

[Calgary Highlander]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Forests grow back. Old growth doesn't absorb much carbon, young forests absorb a ton. Forests burning down and growing back is a carbon neutral cycle.

I don't think this is true. Carbon trapped within solid biomass is released as CO2 in to the atmosphere when burned. Unless you're capturing the CO2, burning of biomass is definitely not a carbon neutral process.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Calgary Highlander

I don't think this is true. Carbon trapped within solid biomass is released as CO2 in to the atmosphere when burned. Unless you're capturing the CO2, burning of biomass is definitely not a carbon neutral process.

I suspect the 'growing back' part is recapturing the carbon

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Forests grow back. Old growth doesn't absorb much carbon, young forests absorb a ton. Forests burning down and growing back is a carbon neutral cycle.

Oil formation and combustion is also "a carbon neutral cycle"; however, the pace of combustion vastly exceeds that of formation which makes it a net emitter and the same can occur with the combustion of biomass. So what, exactly, is your point?

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by SebC

Oil formation and combustion is also "a carbon neutral cycle"; however, the pace of combustion vastly exceeds that of formation which makes it a net emitter and the same can occur with the combustion of biomass. So what, exactly, is your point?

That's a fairly ridiculous argument.

Forests burning due to natural causes and growing back again is on a local time cycle of a couple hundred years or less, and globally the cycle smooths out a lot because forest cycles are at different points all over the globe.

If you let forest fires and regrowth run their natural cycle, atmospheric CO2 stays roughly constant.

If you take a few million years of fossilization and then burn a large portion of it in 100 years, you end up with a massive spike in atmospheric CO2 because your combustion rate greatly exceeds the fossilization rate. There is no natural cycle for the burning of fossil fuels besides the odd coal seam fire.

Fossilization has been a huge carbon sink since way before humans were around. If you release all that CO2 at once you'll have atmospheric conditions that didn't exist when the earth was hospitable to human life. Not the same as forest fires. Bad analogy.