Posted by Kromey at 12:36pm Mar 18 '10that the carbon released includes the carbon that was previously sequestered from the atmosphere. (It also includes carbon from nutrients in the soil, etc., which is why it's not the same.) My summing of those two numbers isn't to calculate "emissions" per se, but rather the net carbon deficit - i.e. the amount released by the burning itself as well as the atmospheric carbon that won't be sequestered by that forest.
What I really need to find is figures for sequestration over time as a burned forest regrows, compared to sequestration for the forest if it hadn't burned.
I'm not turning this into a climate change debate, at least not yet. This is speculation and curiosity that I'm chasing down right now. Every year, Fairbanks gets buried under a choking cloud of smoke from wildfires all over the state that gets funneled into our little valley and then stays there. It's led me to wonder how wildfires stack up in the scheme of Things That Are Bad For The Environment, so I'm following up on that.
What I really need to find is figures for sequestration over time as a burned forest regrows, compared to sequestration for the forest if it hadn't burned.
I'm not turning this into a climate change debate, at least not yet. This is speculation and curiosity that I'm chasing down right now. Every year, Fairbanks gets buried under a choking cloud of smoke from wildfires all over the state that gets funneled into our little valley and then stays there. It's led me to wonder how wildfires stack up in the scheme of Things That Are Bad For The Environment, so I'm following up on that.
You're right - Kromey