If trees sequester carbon in their trunks and release oxygen, what do they use the oxygen for at night, and how come they are oxygen-neutral, do they store it somehow?
Also, if the Amazon is a carbon sink today, what about if there was dieback? It would turn into a carbon source, but how? Don’t the “unit economics” of trees remain the same?
Oversimplifiying: Some of the carbon goes to the wood and some goes to sugar. During the night the plant "burns" the sugar with oxygen produce energy. (If you keep a plant in hermetic place without oxygen and without light, it would die, exactly like an animal.)
(Notes about the oversimpliplification: Wood is made of cellulose that is a carbohydrate and sugar is algo a carbohydrate, they are quite similar chemically. Also, plants produce and "burn" other compounds.)
If trees sequester carbon in their trunks and release oxygen, what do they use the oxygen for at night, and how come they are oxygen-neutral, do they store it somehow?
Also, if the Amazon is a carbon sink today, what about if there was dieback? It would turn into a carbon source, but how? Don’t the “unit economics” of trees remain the same?