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Earth Releasing More CO2 Than Originally Thought

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the heavy-breathing dept.

grqb writes "A new study out of the UK suggests that terrestrial sinks across the planet are mopping up much less carbon than predicted, on balance, and so the planet may warm at an even faster rate than expected. The study focused on the carbon content in soil at 6000 sites in the UK between 1978 and 2003 and found that the soil released the equivalent of 8% of the UK's total 1990 carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions are more than the entire reduction in emissions the UK has achieved between 1990 and 2002 as part of its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol. This would effectively cancel out the UK's recent successes in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and would have wider global implications as well."

5 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cant WE mop up some of the CO2? by Rakshasa+Taisab · · Score: 5, Funny

    1) Plant a tree.
    2) ...
    3) Profit.

    This ofcourse assumes you don't burn them later on.

    --
    - These characters were randomly selected.
  2. Re:"Earth" by kfg · · Score: 5, Informative

    No. It's called The Carbon Cycle. "Soil" (as opposed to "dirt") is composed of decaying plant matter, decaying because it is being metabolised my microoganisms, a process that releases the CO2 the plant bound in itself over its life.

    If the total biomass remains roughly constant, a plant grows for a plant that dies, the system remains roughly in balance, as the new plants absorb the CO2 released by the dead plants.

    If, however, the bio mass is declining. . .

    KFG

  3. Careful with your real estate speculations... by fm6 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Everybody assumes that global warming means a uniform rise in temperature and sea levels. (Peter Hamilton wrote some remarkably bad SF on that premise.) The planet's a tad more complicated than that. I don't know about Alaska, but I've seen reports claiming that Europe would likely get colder, because the Gulf Stream will probably be diverted. Other reports claim that sea levels in some areas would actually drop.

    So if you're investing in Global Warming, don't buy real estate -- too uncertain what will happen to it. You might consider wind farming...

  4. Bad science... writing by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Informative

    The rate of increase of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere is easily and accurately measured. We KNOW how fast greenhouse gasses are going into the atmosphere. So the premise that "soils are absorbing less than we thought, so warming will occur faster than we thought" is fatally flawed.

    Until 2000 I worked in a climate research lab - not as a scientist; I was a tech. Here's what the actual research (that the article twists) probably found. It is well known that atmospheric CO2 is increasing less rapidly than our models predict, because we don't know what's providing the sink for about half of what we're generating. So it's likely that some British scientists had speculated these soils were part of this "missing sink" (bad pun intended). However now they know they aren't as much of a factor - so the search will go on.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  5. No surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Shhhh... don't mention any sources of global warming (or cooling) that can't be blamed on the following:

    1) The United States, generally
    2) George W. Bush, personally
    3) White males
    4) Hummers (the vehicles, not the ... you know)
    5) Animal testing
    6) Microsoft
    7) Republicans
    8) Amazon.com's patent portfolio

    Good! Now, repeat after me: "All Hail Slashdot Groupthink! Flamebait == My Politics Differ! Troll = Possibly correct, but goes against my preconceived notions!"