The minute your tree begins absorbing CO2 is is cleaning the air so to speak. Younger trees absorb CO2 at a faster rate than older trees because they are doing their growing while young and this slows down in time. When you cut down or burn a tree it releases all it's stored CO2 so that would return all that CO2. You could think of that as no gain or loss, except during it's lifetime, that tree has been exhaling @ 10% of all the CO2 it absorbs during the day at night. In effect it is only a 90% carbon sink Plus the tree is no longer able to absorb CO2 and at the time of it's demise it is adding CO2 to the current atmosphere

Trees do not make Carbon. All of the carbon in them is what they took from the atmosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial...

When burned, they cannot possibly put more carbon back into the atmosphere than what they originally took out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_balanc...

@Gryph: "absorbing CO2 is is cleaning the air"

Not at all! CO2 is as necessary for life as H2O. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism#...

The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is not unusual from a historical standpoint. http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/f... (page 18)

Coral seem to like extra CO2. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007...

CO2 increases agricultural yields. http://co2science.org/data/plant_growth/...

CO2 improves soil. http://dbs.umt.edu/research_labs/rilligl...

CO2 is all part of a natural cycle. (1) Global Warming is not a serious problem. (2)

However, it you are worried about atmospheric CO2, then to the extent that you do not burn the trees, but instead use them for making paper and lumber, the carbon remains sequestered in the products. The amount of anthropogenic CO2 produced annually is only about 5% to 7% (5) of the amount that moves between the oceans and the atmosphere in the solubility pump. (3) It is not clear whether the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 was more due to anthropogenic CO2 or due to the oceans releasing CO2 faster as their surfaces warmed due to the decreasing solubility of CO2 in water as it warms. (4)

If you are worried about the effect additional anthropogenic CO2 (5) has on global warming, (6) it probably does not amount to much. (7)

Nature found a balance with the amounts of carbon in circulation and the energy we receive from the sun. Mankind has altered the balance and as a result there is now 40% more CO2 in the atmosphere then at the start of the industrial revolution. Replacing a burned tree will take time but as it is a regular occurrence all over the world, it has little effect providing we replace the trees. as fast as we remove them.

Ignoring the carbon footprint of planting, caring for and harvesting the tree, and whatever carbon is left as charcoal or ashes after the tree is burned, I think the answer is yes, and that Gryph is inadvertently conflating net and gross flows of carbon.

hi,

I have a question regarding after planting a tree of 1 year you cut it and burned it to get warmth.

is the equation here is no loss no gain in overall process regarding co2 and oxygen during the same period after you burned the tree?

i.e is the oxygen added to the atmosphere and carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere during the plant living period then after you burned it, are the same amounts reversed back ? or there is a gain/ loss in relation to oxygen and carbon dioxide ? I mean approx. not exactly.

where photosynthesis is

carbon dioxide + water = glucose + oxygen

and combustion

is

glucose+ oxygen= carbon dioxide + water