Question: What was it like adding greenhouse gases into the air for the first time?

Aileen Baird answered on 9 Mar 2018:

This is such a good question. In the forest the carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) is pumped into the air only when the trees have leaves on. This is because the trees can only photosynthesize (turn sunlight into food) when they have leaves on, so when their leaves fall off in autumn the trees are very inactive. This means that in the winter there isn’t much point pumping the carbon dioxide around! The summer of 2017 is when the carbon dioxide was added into the air for the first time and it was very exciting! All the researchers working on the project are analyzing their results from this first year of adding the carbon dioxide.

Also the pumps which add the carbon dioxide are really really noisy which is strange when you’re in a forest which is really quiet otherwise!