Through our forests, fertilization by nitrogen deposition is to some degree offsetting our carbon dioxide emissions at least right now, she said.

It was first recognized in the 1980s that human activities, by releasing unprecedented amounts of active nitrogen into the atmosphere, were not just altering the global nitrogen cycle but also causing the eutrophication of large parts of the biosphere, the researchers said in their report. Nitrogen produced by automobile engines, factories, and intensive agriculture is often a key, limiting nutrient in forests and other ecosystems.

Early forest growth puts a severe nitrogen stress on the ecosystem initially, and then the forest continues to grow and remove carbon from the atmosphere for the rest of the management or life cycle, accumulating wood at a high rate on the small additional nitrogen inputs.

This growth and sequestration is achieved without applications of fertilizer that would likely result in nitrous oxide emissions, another greenhouse gas, that would offset the benefits to the atmosphere of carbon removal.

However, its known that large additions of nitrogen to ecosystems can also be damaging above a certain threshold, researchers say, and its unclear how long this process will continue.

The results demonstrate that mankind is ultimately controlling the carbon balance of temperate and boreal forests, either directly through forest management or indirectly through nitrogen deposition, the study authors said.

Ultimately, mature forests, at least in northern latitudes, absorb and sequester substantial amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Forest protection and management options have been viewed as one mechanism to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce concerns about the greenhouse effect and global warming.

'"/>

Contact: Beverly Law
bev.law@oregonstate.edu
541-737-6111
Oregon State University
13-Jun-2007