A study shows that the trees in the Amazon rainforest are much much older than we assumed and play a far smaller role than estimated in reducing global warming: 

Because their trees are old and slow—growing, the Amazon forests, which contain about a third of all carbon found in land vegetation, have less capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon than previous studies have predicted. Although some of the largest trees also grow the fastest and can take up carbon quickly, the vast majority of the Amazon trees grow slowly.

'In the Central Amazon, where we found the slowest growing trees, the rates of carbon uptake are roughly half what is predicted by current global carbon cycle models,' Trumbore said. 'As a result, those models — which are used by scientists to understand how carbon flows through the Earth system — may be overestimating the forests' capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.'

What other miscalculations are there in this overblown, highly politicized area?
 
Clarice Feldman   12 13 05