Note that more than 50% of Belgian electricity production is nuclear. Immagine the color of the map if they would be closed.

There aree several statements made that are in outright error. Silviculture and agriculture are human endeavors that man has pursued for ten thousand years.

Both are atmospheric reducers of CO2. Not all activities are ONE WAY INTO the atmosphere as stated here. This study is actually nothing new. The technology and ability to measure over distance is new.

Eighteenth century scientists including at least four Nobel winners who measured atmospheric content in the atmsophere, noted that the prevailing direction of the wind would cause their measurements to change. They attributed this to the industrial Ruhr Valley since they were measuring the air in Europe. And their research dates from as early as 1830, throughout the century!

By the bye, they also reveal a monthly CO2 cycle that was unknown to the Moana Loa CO2 observatory until they inspected their data carefully in view of these recovered old atmsopheric studies. These Hawaiian scientists found the monthly cycle that the 18th century scientists had deduced, but that Moana Loa had overlooked, so minor was the monthly fluctuation.

Long disregarded these old science reports are now studied in lieu of using vague proxies for CO2 content. They reveal CO2 levels varied from 270 to 350 ppm back in the 18th century, The ignorant Science of the 1960s said these levels could never occur above 280 and that was the "normal" preindustrial level. No such thing.

I welcome such studies though. If applied to North America, it should serve to establish without question, the CO2 levels over vast areas, such as the CO2 levels entering and leaving the North America on the prevailing winds. It can establish whether the spot evidence that North America is a Sink not a Source of CO2, so counter to conventional wisdom, is valid based on more than the fragmentary scientific evidence available.

A better understanding all of the parameters involved in the carbon cycle is a very good bit of knowledge to gain.

Having readily available mapping of CO2 production and uptake will point out problem areas that are easiest to address. By picking the low hanging fruit quickly, we can make faster initial improvements. Better numbers are evidence to enforce better co-operation .

@ Mr Lankester,

Lots of the carbon in growing plants is fixed from atmospheric CO2, especially in the case of trees. It is proportionately, almost all. So these activities are carbon sequestration activities, until or whether they give up the carbon after death.

Those plants that are not fully de-composed, or are buried, such as plant stubble, or trees are sequestered for considerable time, and may become peat, lignite, and eventually coal in a few million years. Is that a sufficient length of time for you to sequester CO2?

Your comment about N20 would be real, except that modern farming practices have led to effective control of N20. Or did you not know that?

If you survey the SCIENTIFIC literature, as opposed to donation soliciting pseudo-scientific appeals, you will discover that even the IPCC now declares that "the N2O problem" no longer exists and is in remission. Levels of N2O in the atmosphere are now in control and actually dropping. Making N2O no longer a GHG problem. See IPCC AR4. Indeed all GHG gases, Hydro-fluorocarbons, CH4, N20, except for CO2, are in control and are now stable or declining. See AR4.

As to your comment about deforestation, please survey the SCIENTIFIC literature once again. On net, the world is reforesting, lead by North America, but including Europe, despite celebrated examples of deforestation, meant to engender donations, to environmental organizations.

It is not even totally clear that, on net, the Amazon basis is being deforested. Certainly some areas are, but others are returning to forest. One effect of rising atmospheric CO2 levels is the fertilizer effect on plants. The biomass of the Amazon forest has increased significantly. Once again I urge you to solicit and investigate the SCIENTIFIC literature. I have seen no papers discussing Borneo's forest, so I withhold any comment about that.

In your desire to paint every possible out come as dire, please note that conversion of marginal farmland to reforested areas, results in a rise in Albedo over the large areas that are abandoned, left fallow, and return to forest.

Conversely, the poor farmers who abandon their hard scrabble subsistence farming, join the urban areas enlarging them. This serves to reduce the Albedo over the expanding urban areas. But there is no comparison in area extent measures. The reforested areas dwarf the expanding urbanization areas. On net, the Earth keeps much less incident radiation, reflecting more to space, as the LULLC changes resulting in a net rise of the Albedo.

This provides a net global cooling effect. Presumably what you seek.

If silviculture and agriculture were not sequestration activities, what pray tell would be the source of the Carbon Credits to be sold to those seeking amelioration indulgences? This is the supposed "deus ex market" that environmentalists offer as a AGW cure.

You cannot have a true market when all are buyers and no one has anything to sell, or the converse, unless there are fiat indulgences created by government for politically favored people to sell. In that case, there is no benefit, as buying indulgences with fiat indulgence currency, results in no true amelioration of the original putative AGW problem.

@Stan

Speaking as a geologist, which, despite your various jibes is still regarded as a science, the sequestration provided by vegetation is transitory and generally in balance. We are talking on the scale of the carbon cycle (~100 years). Under certain circumstances carbon is more permanently sequestered where anaerobic conditions prevail over the normal, CO2 neutral, aerobic decomposition processes. Permafrost, peat wetlands and the everglades are good examples as were the forests of the Carboniferous Period where fluctuating sea levels on broad swathes of the continental margins repeatedly flooded and buried thick peat deposits leading to coal.

And there is the rub. We can burn off millions of years of natural sequestration far faster than we can replant woodland.

The difference in time scale perspective is also seeming to cause some confusion. Assuming that your use of the word reforestation is correct, then, by definition, this is replacement of forest that was removed in the past. A classic example, from my time living in Maryland, was the reforestation that occurred on previous agricultural land that had become uneconomic to farm in the face of competition from the vast farms further west in the US. Areas of the Amazon that are returning to forest are, in your own words, "returning to forest". Over the time scales of hundreds of years that I was referring to, there has been net deforestation. A partial return merely refixes some of the carbon released by previous actions by man. Only with genuine afforestation (for instance some examples from the flow country of Scotland) can additional carbon sequestration be claimed.
Note that natural reforestation can hardly be considered as 'silviculture' which was the original topic of conversation.

Again, with N2O, the most up-to-date agricultural practices might reduce emission but only in relation to previous (20th Century) practice using artificial nitrogen fertilizer generated on industrial scales with the advent of the Haber process. As N2O has an atmospheric life time of 120 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas), we will be living with the legacy of agricultural practice for most of this century.

As to what I 'seek', as a scientist that would be truth and greater understanding.
As a father, I WANT, net cooling but with the decrease in the Arctic ocean ice cover and observed increases in melting on the Greenland ice cap (the larger ice grains resulting from freezing have a lower albedo than fresh snow), I am not sure that we are getting it. Only the long term satellite observations (such as ENVISAT MERIS Albedo Level 3 composites) can answer that one.

As Carbon Credit markets 'supposed "deus ex market" that environmentalists offer as a AGW cure' Bit of a straw man that as there are a lot of environmentalists who are sceptical about the trustworthiness and effectiveness of markets.

Finally Stan, for the record, that'll be Dr Lankester.

@Andrey

To be clear: I, personally, want net cooling with respect to the current warming trend i.e. I want climate stability (not another glaciation!). As your Science Daily reference points out Andrey, change in climate, sea level etc. can affect stability (political, agricultural, etc.).

The geological record shows that the of Earth's climate can naturally change very rapidly through a number of non-linear positive feedback loops that overcome the more prevalent negative feedback loops. It can act like a big grumpy bear. As we know that certain gases in the atmosphere affect the planet's energy balance, it seems prudent not to change the concentration of those gases by tens of percent (35% for CO2, 65% for methane).
If you have a big grumpy bear, don't deliberately go poking it with a stick :)

Back on topic: I hope ENVISAT can continue its exemplary job providing global monitoring of various aspects of the planet's environment until at least 2013 when the replacement Sentinel missions start to come on stream.