Wood Versus Fossil Fuel as a Source of Excess Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

If the amounts of wood consumed in deforestation to increase agricultural land and as firewood in underindustrialized countries are added to the amount consumed by the money economies as forest products, the estimates of the net amount of wood removed from the biosphere in this century should be revised upward. The per capita ratio of the weight of carbon from net wood burned to the weight of carbon from fossil fuel burned in this century has been at least 0.1 and may have approached 1.0.

Estimates of gross and net fluxes of carbon between the biosphere and the atmosphere from biomass burning

“…The release of CO2 into the atmosphere has been estimated during recent years by several authors (Woodwell and Houghton, 1977;Adams et al, 1977;Woodwell et al, 1978;Bolin, 1977;Baes et al, 1976;Wong, 1978a,b;Olson et al, 1978) using different pathways and methods, which are, unfortunately, often not well documented and clear. The reported net release rates vary widely, ranging from 0.5 Pg C to more than 8 Pg C/yr, which should be added to the net input of 5-6 Pg C/yr originating from the burning of fossil fuels to give the total net input of CO2 to the atmosphere (Bolin, 1977;Baes et al, 1976).…”

Modeling the Carbon System

“…It is here that the major criticism of the Oeschger and others model comes. Baes and others (1976), Bolin (1977), Adams, Montovani, and Sundell (1977), Woodwell and Houghton (1977), Woodwell and others (1978), and 'along (1978a,b) all conclude that the terrestrial biomass has decreased over the past 20 years (ie, the time period covered by Keeling's measurements). If the direct estimates of the terrestrial biomass change are used to estimate the amount of fos- Keeling and Bacastow (1977).…”

The flux of charcoal to the troposphere during the period of agricultural burning in Panama

“…Burning of plant material may contribute more than 60% of the fine carbonaceous material emitted to the troposphere from tropical land areas (Cachier et al, 1985). These investigators and others (Adams et al, 1977;Wong, 1978) suggest that phytomass burning in the low latitudes is much more significant than burning in the middle and high latitudes. Seiler and Crutzen's data (1980) indicate that over 80% of the annually burned phytomass is in the tropics.…”

“…In previous studies, the extent of clearing and burning has been measured indirectly by per capita fuel consumption (Adams et al, 1977) or by expansion of cultivated land (Revelle and Munk, 1977;Root, 1976). Burning patterns in southern California and northern Mexico (Minnich, 1983) and Brazil (Stone et al, 1984) have been determined by satellite imagery.…”