STudy Of Eastern U.S. Forests Discovers They Are Growing Faster In Recent Years

February 3rd, 2010

While the overall subject of this study is rather interesting, the results are far from conclusive. First a little background on the study:

For more than 20 years forest ecologist Geoffrey Parker has tracked the growth of 55 stands of mixed hardwood forest plots in Maryland. The plots range in size, and some are as large as 2 acres. Parker’s research is based at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, 26 miles east of the nation’s capital.

This was compared to 225 years of data. The study was the last 20 years and the results show the changes recently based on this time frame.

Parker states that he and his researchers came up with a list of possible reasons that the forests could be growing faster, and were able to rule over half of them out in their project management software

The ones that they have taken hold of as their main talking points would include increased temperature, a longer growing season and increased levels of atmospheric CO2.

Of course with the global warming topic being looked at with a microscope lately, and into the future it is no surprise that the correlation was reached.

During the past 22 years CO2 levels at SERC have risen 12%, the mean temperature has increased by nearly three-tenths of a degree and the growing season has lengthened by 7.8 days. The trees now have more CO2 and an extra week to put on weight. Parker and McMahon suggest that a combination of these three factors has caused the forest’s accelerated biomass gain.

This is interesting, but as Parker himself says he would like to see other census takers around the world to correlate their data in the same way to find a stronger claim. Of course he is certain that the phenomenon in his study represents the Eastern deciduous forest accurately.

An worthwhile study to say the least, but as always it is rather limited, and I might say a bit contrived with the theories. I am not questioning the results of the study, or that it may be accurate in what they claim could be the causes, but it certainly raises questions about the motives with so little time passed for the study. 20 years just doesn’t seem like enough data, even compared to 225 years that it was compared to for us to draw swignificatn conclusions in my mind.