I'd like to see what other researchers say about this. A few months ago there was enthusiasm for a substance called glomalin that was storing the carbon. Before that it was buried charcoal or tera preta as practised by the Amazon natives. There was no mention of internalised particles. Clearly the above ground parts of trees are vulnerable to fire, disease and drought so that carbon capture estimates would have to be radically revised every year.

If this line of thinking is headed towards paying farmers to capture carbon I think it is 'barking up the wrong tree'. Agriculture will be difficult enough without disputes over how many tonnes of carbon are locked in a particular paddock. The answer to carbon emissions is to create less in the first place.

Wow…this sounds exciting! I have never heard of this, and am interested to learn more. Does anyone know of any links for further information?

Sequestration of carbon into soil isn't new. Perennial grasslands are a continuous component of achieving this outcome which, in turn, improves soil health and functionality, including moisture retention. Healthy soil is also the most effective form of water storage yet most images of water storage are of large dams.

Pasture cropping is a method of effectively and reliably sequestering carbon into the soil with added benefits of naturally occurring accumulation of nitrogen which is improving crop yields. (The Pasture Cropping system consists of annual cereal crops sown directly into dormant, perennial native grasses so soil disturbance is nil. Timed grazing is an integral activity as the other component of maintaining fully functional grassland ecology.)

Dr Christine Jones www.amazingcarbon.com has been researching this area of ecology for years and is Australia's foremost authority on the subject. There are significant economic benefits for landholders who are involved in this system and the Carbon Coalition is the enterprise creating the trading systems.
www.carboncoalition.com.au

Holistic landholders are the future to our food and fibre production industries as their primary focus is to look after their soils as everything else is totally reliant upon this vital resource.

bush goddess

I think that all avenues of sequestration of carbon should be followed and if this should prove true it is a good thing. Some agricultural waste is better suited to the EPRIDA process. The waste is pyrolized, the waste gases make bio-diesel. The low temperature charcoal is returned to the soil where is acts as substrate for mycellium which increase bioavailability nutrients resulting in increases in fertility of 300%. This a modern way of creating terra preta do indios which was used in the Amazon basin. An amazing story available on line. That carbon has laid locked up for 2000 years.

Very interesting research - all we need is the rain so the crops can grow.

Another technique of storing carbon appeared in the press on the weekend. It involves fertilizing oceans with urea to encourage plankton growth, which require CO2 and sunlight. The theory is that when the plankton die, their carbon rich remains will fall to the ocean floor, storing the carbon indefinitely. This research is a joint US, Japanese and Australian effort, and they are hoping to win Sir Richard Brason's $32m environment prize.

This is good work and deserves support.

But of more immediate concern is whether this 300mt of absorbed CO2 has been, or will be, incorporated into the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGGI) as an existing credit for the nations that have this form of sequestration.

This 300mt/yr amounts to some 5.1 billion tonnes of sequestration since 1990 that has not been considered by the IPCC and has not been added to the climate models. And given our status as an agricultural nation, we should ask how much of this 300mt belongs to Australia.

And when this is combined with the serious under reporting of other forms of landuse carbon sequestration, like regrowth and thickenning, and assumptions that cleared land releases all its carbon in the clearing year, then the anomalies are mounting to a level that will seriously distort (overstate) long term emission projections.

The culpability of the IPCC is further emphasised by their absurd policy of denying any credit to carbon sequestration functions that started prior to 1990. In this one incredibly stupid act, they effectively preclude 95% of the existing landscape from making any meaningful contribution to further carbon sequestration.

You have to be seriously stupid to try encouraging landowners to absorb carbon by delivering a huge kick in the guts to every landowner that was already doing the job prior to 1990.

But thats the IPCC for you. And they expect me to take them seriously.