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Pine Beetle Turning BC Forests into Net Source of Carbon Dioxide by 2020
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by ScienceDave | April 24, 2008 at 06:44 am
1889 views | 29 Recommendations | 9 comments
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Flying over British Columbia, or even driving through the interior of the province, will reveal a blight spreading throughout the province's forests. Hectares of pine trees have died and turned red, interspersed with green swathes of trees waiting for their turn to perish.
During the last decade, pine beetles have ravaged British Columbian boreal forests. The insect burrows through the outer bark of the tree, laying eggs within the phloem (channels within the inner tree bark that carries water and nutrients up to higher regions of the tree). A blue fungus piggybacks on the beetle, infecting the tree, and preventing it from fending off further beetle infection. Within two weeks, the tree eventually starves to death.
Normally, pine beetles are held back in their ravenous tracks by cold winters - several days of -35ºC weather will kill large populations of the overwintering beetle larva (source). Unfortunately, BC hasn't seen that sort of winter weather in many years.
But wait - there's more. According to a study published today in the scientific journal Nature, the pine beetle should no longer be viewed solely as a blight against the forest and tourist industry, but rather as a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
The study estimated the beetle to have killed off between 74,000-94,000 square kilometers of forest. To put this in perspective, the worst year of pine beetle infestation resulted in ~75% of all the trees killed and burned in BC between 1959-1999. You read correctly - that's one year compared with 40. Furthermore, it is more than 5 times greater than the annual carbon dioxide emissions from the automobiles and planes in all of Canada (source).
As the authors put it, "Climate change has contributed to the unprecedented extent and severity of this outbreak, Insect outbreaks such as this represent an important mechanism by which climate change may undermine the ability of northern forests to take up and store atmospheric carbon..."
By 2020, BC forests may no longer be an overall carbon sink (via the conversion of carbon dioxide into sugars during photosynthesis), but rather an overall source as the rotting timber releases CO2 into the atmosphere.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (9)
at 06:48 on April 24th, 2008
ScienceDave, I like this story. It's good stuff.
I hate what the pine beetle is doing to our forests, and to find out that they are a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions is even more devastating. There's no way to really get rid of them though, is there?
at 15:30 on April 2nd, 2009
Unless you can make the weather really really cold, like -40, in one day and keep it that way for a month, no. The bugs are here to stay. I've heard form my family, that are working in one of P.G.'s local mills, that they are finding evidence that suggests the bugs are starting to attack other trees. Fir i think was what they said.
I don't think it's the bugs, so much as it is our "Responsibility" to take better care of the forest. As we are "suposed" to be all very highly intelegent and all. Personally, i think we are intelligent, but deffinately not very wise. Just thing, we cut how many trees down, plant little tiny ones that are not even 1/100th the size of them, and expect the balance to be stable. Hmmm, perhaps we need to rethink our claim to intelegence...
at 07:18 on April 24th, 2008
So, rather than actively generating emissions (i.e. bug farts), the pine beetles are preventing the forests from purging existing carbon from the atmosphere?
at 07:20 on April 24th, 2008
Yes, but also - the carbon currently locked up in tree hard parts that would normally remain sequstered from the atmosphere for a few decades (or more) is now being broken down and released into the atmosphere. A doubly whammy.
at 09:37 on April 24th, 2008
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at 09:38 on April 24th, 2008
Good stuff flag.
at 09:46 on April 24th, 2008
Glad to see you actually wrote this article and used 'source' links for your info and quote references. You well deserve the full Good Stuff quote.
ScienceDave, you've convinced me you've done the work - it's authentic. I also think that you've been fair and thorough. I didn't get the sense that you were hiding your biases, or passing off other's work as your own. Or worse -- getting paid by those you cover -- so it's transparent and independent. I also think you deserve praise for being an eyewitness, and for your investigative efforts. Good stuff.
Pine beetles have been a plague throughout the Rockies and in Colorado where I'm from. Beetlekill wood has been used for interesting woodwork and furniture in Colorado. And once forest fires destroy off the beetle kill trees, new growth includes Aspen groves for a more colorful fall. But forest fires add to the global warming problems, so logging the beetle kill is an excellent idea, use the scraps for biofuel since there's such a demand for lumber. Beetle kill wood might even demand higher prices.
at 13:31 on April 24th, 2008
this article pointsa to what I have been saying for some time to ayone who will listen.
Buying carbon credits from companies who's claim is planting of trees as negating your carbon footprint is WRONG!!
This beetle example is one way that the carbon will be released back into the atmpshpere.
The other is through forest fires.
People selling carbon schemes need to be providing more permanent solutions.
Even forests that survive bugs, disease and fire only have a limited life span, thus merely delaying the release of carbon.
at 14:18 on April 24th, 2008
ScienceDave, I like this story. It's good stuff. I would guess the best method is to cut down these trees and process them for building materials, thus controlling CO2 release, and then plant with new trees, hoping the pine beetle doesn't get those as well, perhaps even planting a different species of trees may help. Last week I was Flying in a Beaver float plane over brown sections in the interior and the coast and the Pine beetle for sure needs to be killed any which way we can.
I have photos of dual rotor Sea King helicopters taking these dead trees and dropping them into the inlet for the loggers to take away, it seemed these helicopters were plucking and dropping these trees every few minutes, once in the office I will download some of these helicopters in action and post them on here,