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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 2021
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Photos by Nick Ward/Pacifi c Northwest National Laboratory
Matt Norwood, a researcher at the Pacifi c Northwest National Laboratory, studies trees in
Washington state’s coastal forests and the East Coast.
Researchers probe methane
in Washington’s coastal forest
By COURTNEY FLATT
Northwest News Network
Trees have a little secret
you might not know about.
Yes, they produce oxy-
gen. Yes, they take in car-
bon dioxide, a heat-trapping
greenhouse gas. But, they
also emit methane.
Methane is a greenhouse
gas that can be signifi cantly
more potent than carbon
dioxide.
“Just about every tree
we measured had elevated
amounts of methane in it.
And that was consistent
across the Northwest with
a variety of different spe-
cies,” says Nick Ward, a sci-
entist with Pacifi c Northwest
National Laboratory.
Ward has long been inter-
ested in methane.
After grad school, he was
measuring methane coming
out of the water in the Flor-
ida everglades. He sat down
next to a giant cypress tree.
Ward had read about meth-
ane actually coming out of
trees, so he placed his tool
over the knee — a part of
the tree — at the base of the
cypress.
“I just made a PVC thing
and put it on there, mea-
sured it, and was like, ‘Wow,
there’s like 100 times more
methane coming out of this
little knee than the water
right next to it,’” Ward said.
After he began his career
at Pacifi c Northwest National
Laboratory’s Marine and
Coastal Research Labora-
tory in Sequim, Washington,
Ward thought he’d see what
happened when he took a
sample of the nearby forest.
Yup, methane was there,
too.
It might sound surprising.
You likely don’t think trees
can emit methane, but there
are several ways the process
can happen.
First, the roots can suck
up methane that’s naturally
produced in groundwater
deep below the surface.
“So the tree is almost like
a straw tapping down into
the deep,” Ward said.
That methane can travel
up the tree’s roots and make
it into the trunk, where the
wood releases it. Ward is
studying the methane dif-
fusing out of the wood. He’s
found the denser the wood,
the harder it is for methane
to escape, like in deciduous
hardwood trees.
Besides wood density, air
temperature and baromet-
ric pressure can also help
predict how much methane
might escape the tree trunk.
But that’s not the only
way a tree’s trunk can release
methane. In the second sce-
nario, the methane comes
from inside the tree — thanks
to microbes, said Matt Nor-
wood, a research associ-
ate at the Pacifi c Northwest
National Laboratory.
“Microbes are chewing
on the inside of the tree and
producing such (high) levels
of methane that you can actu-
ally drill into the tree, light
the methane and get a visible
fl ame,” Norwood said.
The researchers set out
across western Washington
state to measure hundreds of
trees in six different coastal
forests.
They found the phenom-
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Norwood uses a resistograph to drill a very tiny hole to fi gure
out wood density.
enon happening everywhere.
Later, they also studied trees
on the East Coast.
Figuring amounts
Ward said just because the
wood was releasing meth-
ane, that doesn’t mean there
were tons of emissions com-
ing from trees.
To fi gure out the amount
of methane in a tree, Ward
has designed a novel sys-
tem. He wanted to compare
methane in the tree to how
much is escaping through the
wood, which is usually the
only measurement scientists
take.
First, the research team
drills into a tree with a hol-
low tube. That takes out a
sample of the tree core, like
when you need to count tree
rings. He puts a rubber stop-
per with a valve in that hole.
Then, he can stick a large
syringe in the valve and suck
out the gas to analyze.
“That tells you how much
methane is in the tree itself,”
Ward said.
For the second reading to
measure methane emissions,
researchers attach a “col-
lar” to the tree. It’s made of
a PVC pipe, glued with sil-
icone. The cap of the PVC
pipe is connected to an
instrument the researchers
carry inside a backpack.
“With those two measure-
ments, you can get at not
only how much is in there,
but also, how quickly it
escapes,” Ward said.
The team uses a resistance
drill, called a resistograph.
It drills a tiny hole to fi gure
out the wood’s density. They
also measure oxygen in the
tree and soil, and methane in
the soil. It’s all to fi gure out
what’s causing the changes
in methane emissions.
Washington’s
coastal forests
One area they studied was
Washington’s coastal for-
ests, where extremely high
tides fl ood wooded areas.
After fi ve or six years of the
tidal fl ooding, the spruce
trees they were studying had
started to die.
“These fl ood plains (had)
approximately a half to
about a half meter of water,
depending on the extremes,”
Norwood said. “And we get
out there. We’re in our gear.
And it’s a cold Washing-
ton winter, rainy. The water
starts piling up on the fl ood-
plain. And it’s just shocking
to see a little tidal creek turn
into this river and then start
fl ooding the landscape.”
Those fl oods can satu-
rate the soil and create envi-
ronments where more meth-
ane is produced, Norwood
said. Saturated soils, less
oxygen and water can create
good conditions for methane
production. The fl oodwa-
ters also carry methane with
them into the ground.
Norwood said they’re see-
ing the trees quickly uptake
the extra methane produced
or brought into the soil after
a tidal fl ood.
Next, he wants to study
what those increases in
methane in the soil means
for tree health. They already
know the seawater exposure
isn’t good for trees.
“That’s something that we
are all looking into: What is
the impact of these changing
environments, and what’s
driving the decline in tree
health?” Norwood said.
Ward says it’s uncertain
what tree methane might
mean for climate change.
There needs to be more
studies, and a better way to
model methane tree emis-
sions across different forest
types, in different conditions.
“On that prediction side,
we really still have robust
climate models, but they’re
not representing a poten-
tially impactful environmen-
tal phenomenon,” Ward said.
He also doesn’t know
if other climate feedbacks
— such as rising sea levels
— could change how trees
uptake or emit methane.
Ward said they’re discov-
ering something new about
methane every day.
“Even today there are
mysterious environmental
phenomena,” he said. “Sci-
entists really, truly are still
discovering how the natural
world works.”
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