Jan 10, 2008 10:43 am US/Central
Peatland Protection Could Ward Off Climate Change
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ―
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Minnesota's peatlands, while extensive, make up less than 1 percent of the world's total. (File)
AP
Millions of acres of flat, scrubby peatland in northern Minnesota have long been regarded as good for almost nothing. But some climate change experts are concerned that they could contribute to warming global.
The concern is that a warmer climate will speed the decomposition of peatland vegetation, which has been slowly decaying for 4,000 years. Carbon is naturally released as a byproduct of that decomposition; the release of a large untold amount into the environment would accelerate the warming of the climate.
"Northern peatlands are the wild card in global warming," said Eville Gorham, a retired University of Minnesota Regents' professor of ecology who has studied peatlands around the world.
Minnesota has about 7 million acres of peatlands, the most of any state in the lower 48. Large expanses have been drained for farming, but they are still the state's largest intact original ecosystem and perhaps its largest wilderness, said Dave Zumeta, executive director of the Minnesota Forest Resources Council.
The Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group will include peatland protection and restoration measures, as part of several dozen recommendations for slowing climate change the group will forward to Gov. Tim Pawlenty. The peatland protections include raising the water table in peat country, preventing drainage, restoring areas that have been drained and urging that "best management practices" for other lands also apply to peatlands.
It could be a necessary step, with peatlands covering about 14 percent of the state's land area and holding 37 percent of its stored carbon -- the highest of any land or vegetative form. As a result, Minnesota likely has more carbon in natural storage than most other states, said John Pastor, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota-Duluth who has researched peatlands.
Minnesota's peatlands, while extensive, make up less than 1 percent of the world's total. Most, by far, are in Canada and Russia.
Northern Minnesota was particularly well-suited for the formation of peatlands. Much of the northern part of the state was once the flat bottom of glacial Lake Agassiz. When that drained, the cool climate kept it from drying out and prevented vegetation from decomposing completely; the result was carbon-holding peat.
In 1892, U.S. government land surveyors declared the peatlands "practically unfit for any purpose," and numerous efforts to drain more of the lands for farming failed. A generation ago, plans failed to convert peat into natural gas when studies showed it to be inefficient.
Some 3,000 acres of the state's peatlands are being "mined" for sphagnum moss, a garden soil additive. Some drier areas can support black spruce, but other than that the land is little-used except by hunters.
Some experts are concerned that, if peatlands change with the climate, that the ultimate result could be the release of methane gas, which is also stored in large quantities in peatlands and has a much higher heat-trapping potential than carbon.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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