
Tropical forests are emitting more carbon than oxygen, study finds (2017) - gscott
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/tropical-forests-carbon-rise-oxygen-study-climate-change-emissions-a7974941.html
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sparrish
I'm confused. How are tropical forests emitting carbon? Even if the title is
misleading and they mean the areas that used to be tropical forests
(deforested areas), how are these bare areas, which are now clear cut or used
for farming, emitting carbon? I don't see any explanation in the article. Can
someone explain?

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oddsockmachine
Exposed earth typically emits carbon dioxide. It's not "emit" in the way a
breathing mammal would, more that the carbon in the organic material is
oxidized at a greater rate because it's exposed to the atmosphere.

Before deforestation, carbon would be pulled from the atmosphere by trees,
turned into plant material, fall to the ground as dead leaves or whole dead
trunks and be sequestered into the soil as they broke down and were buried.

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titojankowski
If all "tropical forests" were in a single country, at 0.425 Gigatons per year
of emissions that country would be the #14 most polluting in the world! [1]

The article above estimates 0.425 Gigatons of carbon dioxide per year being
emitted by from the world's tropical forests. This is 1.3% of yearly global
emissions! [2]

What if forests flipped from friend to foe, with poorly managed forests
becoming liabilities?

[1] 2016 Carbon Dioxide emissions by country
([http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2andGHG1970-2...](http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2andGHG1970-2016&sort=des8))

[2] 2017 Global Carbon Dioxide emissions at 32.5 Gigaton
([https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-carbon-
iea/global-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-carbon-iea/global-
carbon-emissions-hit-record-high-in-2017-idUSKBN1GY0RB))

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tomatotomato37
I'm confused, is this tropical forests that still exist now emit more carbon,
or land that used to be tropical forest release enough carbon to override the
left over forest?

