Trees are just Awesome: A NEW reason

[rambot]

Trees reveal climate surprise: Microbes living in bark remove methane from the atmosphere

While trees have long been known to benefit the climate by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, this new research reveals a surprising additional climate benefit. Microbes hidden within tree bark can absorb methane—a powerful greenhouse gas—from the atmosphere.

Come on. That's just AWESOME!

 

[AlexB23]

Trees reveal climate surprise: Microbes living in bark remove methane from the atmosphere




Come on. That's just AWESOME!

Trees are awesome, and I appreciate God for creating trees on this planet. Nature's air purifiers.

This is why I gave a few dozen dollars to planting trees last year and this year to a tree planting organization. Hopefully, in a few years, these trees can clean the air in other countries.

 

[Ophiolite]

Interesting. There are some nuances:

• The authors are more cautious than the cover article implies. "Our findings indicate that the climate benefits of tropical and temperate forest protection and reforestation may be greater than previously assumed." Emphasis added.
• The lower stems of trees are net methane emitters.
• To arrive at their conclusion they made certain assumptions. (See the paper for details) These appear to be reasonable, but were not - as far as I could see - validated by further experiment.
• Different trees have different capacities for uptake and while there are some suggestive data it is insufficient to be edifnitive. This has important implications for species selection in reforestation projects.