Carbon Sequestration Definition

Carbon sequestration is a way of saying capturing carbon before it is injected into the atmospher. It also involves the long-term storage of carbon in vegetations, soils, oceans, and geologic formations. The objective is to prevent this carbon from converting into carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere.

A Little More on What is Carbon Sequestration

Many concerns on the impact of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere have been growing and the possibility of enhancing carbon sequestration has been increased through changes in the usage of land and forestry plus geo-engineering methods like storage and carbon capture. Anthropogenic activities like the combustion of fossils have led into the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from coal, natural gas, and petroleum. Besides this, Carbon dioxide is released from nature when plants and animals are burnt. Burning of fossils has greatly increased the level of Carbon dioxide since the industrial age. It is also a very effective greenhouse gas due to its ability to absorb infrared radiation released from the surface of the earth. The more the carbon dioxide piles in the air, the more the retention of infrared radiation which increases the Earths lower temperature commonly termed as global warming. Deforestation releases carbon in the air while a forestation serves as carbon sinks. Normally, carbon is moved from the air to the carbon sink via photosynthesis; it may either be stored in soils or above ground. It is worth noting that carbon sequestered in the soils and plants could be emitted into the air via weather changes or land use. This is achievable by burning or decomposition. All this supplements oxygen in the air with carbon in plant tissues to form carbon dioxide. The terrestrial sink can enhance the level of carbon dioxide in the air via continuous decomposition and combustion. New technologies dealing with carbon capture attempt to control global warming. They include a geoengineering suggestion termed Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Here, carbon dioxide is first distinguished from other gases within industrial emissions then it's compressed and moved to isolation far from the atmosphere to be stored for long. Preferred storage may include geologic structures like deep saline formations, depleted gas and oil storage, or deep ocean. Despite CCS capturing carbon dioxide directly from the source before being released in the air, it may also use scrubbing towers and artificial trees techniques to get carbon dioxide from the air.

References for Carbon Sequestration

• http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/carbon-sequestration.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration
• https://www.britannica.com/technology/carbon-sequestration

Academic Research for Carbon Sequestration

• Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security, Lal, R. (2004). Science, 304(5677), 1623-1627. This article gives us the worlds agricultural and degraded soils at 50 to 66% of common carbon loss of 42 to 78gigatons.The rate of carbon sequestration in relation to the recommended technology relies on soil structure and texture, rainfall, temperature, soil management etc. Some ways of enhancing soil carbon pool include aforestation, cover crops, manuring nutrient management, etc
• Soil carbon sequestration and landuse change: processes and potential, Post, W. M., & Kwon, K. C. (2000). Global change biology, 6(3), 317-327. The author here is concerned with how soil carbon sequestration relates to the changes in the land-use and the processes involved.
• Soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change, Lal, R. (2004). Geoderma, 123(1-2), 1-22. The author here is concerned with how carbon sequestration can be used to control climatic change. Carbon Mitigation strategies were inevitable when CO2 concentration increased by 31% since 1750. Global release of carbon was estimated at 27030 Pg (Pg= petagram=1015 g=1 billion ton) because of the fossil fuel burning and 13655 Pg because of land use and soil cultivation. Depletion of soil organic C (SOC) has led to the 7812 Pg of C of the atmosphere. Depletion of soil c is motivated by soil mismanagement and misuse of land. The adoption of restorative land use and recommended management practices (RMPs) can reduce the rate of CO2 in the air. In summary, the world potential of SOC sequestration through these practices is 0.90.3 Pg C/year, which may offset one-fourth to one-third.
• Advances in CO2 capture technologythe US Department of Energy's Carbon Sequestration Program, Figueroa, J. D., Fout, T., Plasynski, S., McIlvried, H., & Srivastava, R. D. (2008). International journal of greenhouse gas control, 2(1), 9-20. The paper is investigating how anthropogenic emission of (CO2) has led into world climate change. Approaches must, therefore, be designed to deal with this challenge. Some of these methods include transport to the injection site, capture at power plant and sequestration. Current methodologies cover not only advancements in these technologies but also coming up with many innovative concepts like ionic liquids, metal organic framework and enzyme-based systems. In conclusion, the paper talks about the present condition of the advancement of carbon dioxide capture technology.
• Trading water for carbon with biological carbon sequestration, Jackson, R. B., Jobbgy, E. G., Avissar, R., Roy, S. B., Barrett, D. J., Cook, C. W., ... & Murray, B. C. (2005). science, 310(5756), 1944-1947. Here, a research is conducted to find out the substantial losses in stream flow, salinization, and acidification with a forestation. We establish how vegetation reduced stream flows by 52% globally with 13% of streams drying. The author proceeds to conclude how vegetation can mitigate ocean water increase and reduce the stream flow.
• Measurements of carbon sequestration by longterm eddy covariance: Methods and a critical evaluation of accuracy, Goulden, M. L., Munger, J. W., Fan, S. M., Daube, B. C., & Wofsy, S. C. (1996). Global change biology, 2(3), 169-182. The author uses methods to evaluate Carbon dioxide and water vapor in the Havard Forest and how the atmosphere was measured between the year 1990 and 1994 by use of covariance technique. The sources of errors here are partitioned into 3 categories namely selective systematic errors, uniform systematic errors and sampling uncertainty results.
• Tillage and soil carbon sequestrationWhat do we really know? Baker, J. M., Ochsner, T. E., Venterea, R. T., & Griffis, T. J. (2007). Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 118(1-4), 1-5. The article believes that soil tillage is one of the major causes of loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) in North America, and how SOC sequestration can be achieved by shifting from plowing to conservation tillage. This has been based on experiments where changes in the storage of carbon have been approximated by soil sampling of tilled lands. We find out that tillage was used to sequester Carbon when soils were only sampled up to 30 cm or less, On the other hand, where sampling went deeper than 30 cm, conservation tillage did not coincide with the accrual of SOC instead it pointed out a difference when distributing SOC.
• Carbon storage and sequestration by urban trees in the USA, Nowak, D. J., & Crane, D. E. (2002). Environmental pollution, 116(3), 381-389. The paper talks about carbon storage in 10 different cities in USA.It estimates that urban trees in the USA can store up to 700million tons of carbon (($14,300 million value) with a carbon sequestration rate of 22.8 million tC/yr ($460 million/year). The author concludes by informing us on the roles urban forests can play when it comes to reducing the level of carbon dioxide gas- a major greenhouse gas from the atmosphere
• Soil fertility limits carbon sequestration by forest ecosystems in a CO2-enriched atmosphere, Oren, R., Ellsworth, D. S., Johnsen, K. H., Phillips, N., Ewers, B. E., Maier, C., ... & Katul, G. G. (2001). Nature, 411(6836), 469. The author in this article gives evidence to approximate increase in carbon sequestration in forests which accounts for the increased carbon gas in the air. The experiment was carried out in two forest experiments using pine tree as the case study. It found out that there was a gain from higher Co2 and nutrients added. In conclusion, the author tells us that fertility can limit wood carbon sequestration to the increased air carbon dioxide. When assessing future carbon sequestration, disadvantages imposed by soil fertility should be well understood including the link with nitrogen deposits.
• Carbon sequestration in soils, Schlesinger, W. H. (1999). The author in this article is discussing about Carbon sequestration in the soils
• Carbon sequestration in tropical agroforestry systems, Albrecht, A., & Kandji, S. T. (2003). Agriculture, ecosystems & environment, 99(1-3), 15-27. The article is investigating the impact of carbon sequestration in the tropical agroforestry system The paper is concerned with how the Carbon in the air can be stored in the terrestrial biosphere as suggested by Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. They advocate for agro forestry as one of the best ways to control carbon since trees absorb it. This is the main aim of the article- investigating C storage data in the tropical forests, which is approximated to be between 12 and 228 Mg ha1 with a median value of 95 Mg ha1.This, expressed in terms of the area of the earth becomes practice (5851215106 ha), The study claims that between 1.1-2,2Pg C can be kept in terrestrial ecosystems for the next 50 years. The author goes ahead to propose how to estimate Carbon stock and trace gas balance for the other gases.
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