Global warming news: Big, old trees trap more carbon than previously thought

Perhaps trees contributed to last week's brutal polar vortex.

Oh, it's snowing as I write this entry.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Scientists who gathered decades of measurements from hundreds of thousands of trees all over the world are punching a hole in the common assumption that large, old trees are biologically pretty much over the hill.

To the contrary, researchers found that the senior trees have rapid growth rates and keep capturing carbon – lots of it.

"The growth rate just keeps increasing as trees get bigger," said study leader Nate Stephenson, a California-based research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The findings, published Wednesday in a letter in the journal Nature, are based on repeated measurements of 673,046 trees belonging to 403 species across every forested continent.

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