Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumLosses of soil carbon under global warming might equal U.S. emissions
http://news.yale.edu/2016/11/30/losses-soil-carbon-under-global-warming-might-equal-us-emissionsBy Kevin Dennehy | November 30, 2016
[font size=3]For decades scientists have speculated that rising global temperatures might alter the ability of soils to store carbon, potentially releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and triggering runaway climate change. Yet thousands of studies worldwide have produced mixed signals on whether this storage capacity will actually decrease or even increase as the planet warms.
It turns out scientists might have been looking in the wrong places.
A new Yale-led study in the journal Nature finds that warming will drive the loss of at least 55 trillion kilograms of carbon from the soil by mid-century, or about 17% more than the projected emissions due to human-related activities during that period. That would be roughly the equivalent of adding to the planet another industrialized country the size of the United States.
Critically, the researchers found that carbon losses will be greatest in the worlds colder places, at high latitudes, locations that had largely been missing from previous research. In those regions, massive stocks of carbon have built up over thousands of years and slow microbial activity has kept them relatively secure.
[/font][/font]
And that, my friends, is a feedback
femmedem
(8,201 posts)"...The paper then extrapolated these findings for the globe, finding that by the year 2050, the planet could see 55 billion tons of carbon (which converts to 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide, were it all to be released in this form) released from soils. Thats if we continue on with a business as usual scenario of global greenhouse gas emissions and accompanying warming.
Its of the same order of magnitude as having an extra U.S. on the planet, said Crowther. The world has less than 1,000 billion tons of carbon dioxide remaining to emit in order to preserve a reasonable chance of holding the planets warming below 2 degrees Celsius, a widely embraced target, so soil emissions could help to bust the carbon budget..."
More at link.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)This is really vitally important stuff, and, yet, you wouldnt get that impression from the news.
femmedem
(8,201 posts)I wonder if Trump's election and his climate change denial is scaring them into getting the story out.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)However, the Washington Post already had a decent record of reporting on climate issues.