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https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-10-16/australian-rainforest-trees-carbon-storage-producer/105886554>
“Woody trunks and branches of trees in the wet tropical rainforests of
Queensland are losing their ability to absorb excess carbon dioxide.
That's according to an analysis of 49 years' worth of data, published in
Nature today, which shows this "woody biomass" has switched from being a net
carbon absorber to an emitter.
And this shift occurred about 25 years ago.
Ecophysiologist and study lead author Hannah Carle, from Western Sydney
University, said the historical assumption has been wet tropical rainforests
around the world and Australia were "carbon sinks".
"Which means they're taking in more carbon per annum than they release," she
said.
Woody biomass is part of this storage system, and sequesters carbon within the
structure that forms the woody parts of trees.
But the new study showed woody biomass was now, on average across 20 study
sites, a carbon source because carbon lost to trees dying and decaying
outstripped the carbon gained by trees growing to replace them.
"Trees are dying more than they were decades ago and we attribute that change
to climate change," Dr Carle said.
This may be a sign that these Australian wet rainforests as a whole ecosystem
were in decline, and could switch from being net carbon sinks to carbon sources
in the future, according to the study.
"We have in this study evidence that Australia's moist tropical forests are the
first of their kind globally to to exhibit this [woody biomass] change," Dr
Carle said.
"And that that's really significant. It could be a sort of canary in the coal
mine."”
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
