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Carbon-Emitting Soil Could Speed Global Warming, Warns 26-Year Study (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quote the Guardian:
Warming soil releases more carbon into the atmosphere than previously thought, suggesting a potentially disastrous feedback mechanism whereby increases in global temperatures will trigger massive new carbon releases in a cycle that may be impossible to break... The 26-year study is one of the biggest of its kind, and is a groundbreaking addition to our scant knowledge of exactly how warming will affect natural systems. Potential feedback loops, or tipping points, have long been suspected to exist by scientists, and there is some evidence for them in the geological record. What appears to happen is that once warming reaches a certain point, these natural biological factors kick in and can lead to a runaway, and potentially unstoppable, increase in warming...
In the Science study, researchers examined plots of soil in the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts, a mixed hardwood forest in the U.S. They experimented by heating some of the plots with underground cables to 5C above normal levels, leaving others as a control. The long-term study revealed that in the first 10 years there was a strong increase in the carbon released from the heated plots, then a period of about seven years when the carbon release abated. But after this second calmer period, which the scientists attribute to the adjustment of the soil microbes to the warmer conditions, the release of carbon resumed its upward path. From 1991, when the experiment began, the plots subjected to 5C warming lost about 17% of the carbon that had been stored in the top 60cm of the soil, where the greatest concentration of organic matter is to be found...
Lead scientist Jerry Melillo, points out that currently 10 billion metric tons of carbon gets released into the atmosphere every year, but "The world's soils contain about 3,500 billion tons of carbon. If a significant amount of that is added to the atmosphere, due to microbial activity, that will accelerate the global warming process. Once this self-reinforcing feedback begins, there is no easy way to turn it off. There is no switch to flip."
In the Science study, researchers examined plots of soil in the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts, a mixed hardwood forest in the U.S. They experimented by heating some of the plots with underground cables to 5C above normal levels, leaving others as a control. The long-term study revealed that in the first 10 years there was a strong increase in the carbon released from the heated plots, then a period of about seven years when the carbon release abated. But after this second calmer period, which the scientists attribute to the adjustment of the soil microbes to the warmer conditions, the release of carbon resumed its upward path. From 1991, when the experiment began, the plots subjected to 5C warming lost about 17% of the carbon that had been stored in the top 60cm of the soil, where the greatest concentration of organic matter is to be found...
Lead scientist Jerry Melillo, points out that currently 10 billion metric tons of carbon gets released into the atmosphere every year, but "The world's soils contain about 3,500 billion tons of carbon. If a significant amount of that is added to the atmosphere, due to microbial activity, that will accelerate the global warming process. Once this self-reinforcing feedback begins, there is no easy way to turn it off. There is no switch to flip."
Global warming effects the habitability of every region for every organism, bacterial included. Before denialists complain on economic costs they must recognize the second layer of economics impacts from damage to the base agrarian sector that powers all of the economy. Humans require food to live, to use and to make everything else. We face quick changes that disrupt our existing transportation and market networks that distribute these resources, as well reduction in total yields. That damage and the cost of that damage dwarf all complaints about the costs of responding, through limits and changes in production techniques, and through transition to alternative sources of fuels and electricity.
Ok banning it might not work. I say we tax possession of soil, maybe with a carbon credit system. Fallback plan: take all of this 'soil' and bury it deep, preferably under tons of dirt. As any politician knows, burying things takes care of them once and for all. /s
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
you are a fucking retard
I'm impressed by the fact that 26 years ago, some scientists put underground cables to warm the soil 5C and kept it that way for 26 years.
I'm glad somebody even thought of this that long ago, it was (for most people) not on their radar. Who knows what other studies were proposed and were denied because of the political climate from the (Bush) administration. Then again, maybe it was funded by the university. Go Hahvahd!
To the deniers: If we agree on nothing else can we at least agree on continuing to fund well planned scientific studies on the climate? If you really think there is no truth to this then you should be all for it, all the data is public and in fact you can run the studies yourselves! I've always thought that the TRUTH may come from people you completely disagree with.
It would be a crime if due to the political winds/lobbyists these studies were denied, it's like an ostrich sticking its head into the ground (do they really do that?). It's would be like how federal studies into the links between gun ownership and gun violence is PROHIBITED or how the federal government isn't allowed to even negotiate for lower drug prices (despite being a huge buyer, through medicare/medicaid).
Two things are crippling America: poor basic education in some parts of America due to widely uneven funding based on local communities resources (kinda defeats the idea of giving the next generation a fair chance). The other is legalized corruption by allowing unlimited corporate donations to politicians; for example this has resulted in American health care costs being more than twice that of the next country in the entire world! (With worse outcomes)
Once you have some nuclear power plants to stop the CO2 released from coal then use some of that nuclear power to mine and pulverize basalt rock as fertilizer for crops.
http://www.energyfromthorium.c...
Once spread on the fields the calcium oxide, or lime, in basalt will react with the CO2 in the soil to reduce the acidity. Farmers already lime their fields, only now it's produced from mining limestone and then cooking off the CO2 to produce lime. Any CO2 this takes from the soil will only counteract what was released in the lime kilns. It does nothing for the CO2 released from the fuel burned in the kilns. Any CO2 taken from the soil will mean reducing CO2 in the air since natural processes, such as the rain, will carry the CO2 out of the air into the soil where the lime can trap it chemically as limestone, or CaCO3.
There are other uses for the lime and sand from the mined basalt, like making cement and glass. Using nuclear power is an important aspect of this plan since this is an energy intensive process that would have to operate in the mines. They'll have to mine where the rock is easy to reach, not where the sun shines and wind blows. They may be far from infrastructure, making running power lines impractical.
Farmers need to replace this lime in the fields continuously as the nutrients are taken up in the crops and as rains wash it away, so it's not like they spread it out once and the acidity problem is fixed. There is an incredible amount of basalt on Earth, we just will not run out.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Pave the Earth.
One People.
One Planet.
One Sheet of Asphalt.
(and yes, this *****IS***** sarcasm. . . )
You need a lot more than basalt to grow crops.
Did I say that's all was needed? Of course other materials would need to be used. The point is that farmers currently use source of lime that produced a lot of CO2 and we have a means to produce this lime that is CO2 negative. To get this working we need nuclear power, nothing else we currently have will do. That might change in the future but it's nuclear power or this won't work.
Also, nuclear power generation is horrendously expensive - a new plan with decades old but improved design costs 30 billion.
More expensive than finding a new planet? Any argument against nuclear power looks really petty when compared to saving life on Earth. I just proposed a plan to save all life on Earth and all you can come up with is, "it will cost too much". Compared to what? You have a better plan?
We can't use wind power. Those silly windmills made of wood and sheet metal can't power anything more than a small water pump. Oh, you say windmill technology has improved in the last 100 years? IMPOSSIBLE! Because... because I said so. The argument that nuclear power has stood still for the last 50 years is just as logical that wind power has stood still. Why is it that whenever windmills and solar panels are brought up we get, "Yeah, it still sucks now but just wait ten years!" At the same time when nuclear power is brought up we get mentions of the problems of nuclear power from 50 years ago, as if nobody has bothered to improve the technology.
There are hundreds of nuclear power plants operating on Earth right now. We know how to build them to produce power safely, reliably, and cheaply. Any complaints on them should be left in the 1970s when the USA stopped building them until very recently. When people complain about the spent fuel the claim is that the mass is as much as the heaviest element, with the radioactivity of the deadliest element, with a half life of the longest lived element. To make it sound dangerous they have to lie.
It's not "waste", it's fission products that contain some very valuable materials if we'd just get some politicians to take their head out of the 1970s. I guess it makes sense, so many of them got into office in the 1970s. Nuclear power costs go down with economies of scale, kind of like how solar panels get cheaper the more they are made.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
You are confusing energy with CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
If your numbers are correct, the point is not the relative energy generation of humans vs the sun, but that due to the higher CO2 concentration caused by humans, more of those 174 000 Terawats of heat energy from the sun that you mention will be retained in the atmosphere.
Hmmm, I wonder... "conventional wisdom" has been that all of the paving humanity has been doing has created heat islands that are increasing localized global warming. But given this research, I am left to wonder: is there an offset? Clearly I'd think that paving or building over large plots of arid land would certainly squelch this CO2 emission. Of course, there is the carbon cost of the manufacture/construction to consider, but have we perhaps been abating something we didn't even know existed (or, at least, know was a significant CO2 source)? It would seem to me the next logical step for this group would be to pave or concrete over part of one of their experimental plots, accounting for the CO2 "cost" in doing so, and compare. I hate to see all the parking lots and acre-sized warehouses that are overtaking the lush green in my area, but...
(Also, causes me to ponder fictional planets like Coruscant or Trantor.)
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
Tell it to Venus and Mars (runaway cooling in second case).
As for the last 11 inter-glacial periods.. in how many of them so much of fossil fuel was burned? Technology and population density changed a bit since last interglacial...
http://phenomena.nationalgeogr...
http://northernwoodlands.org/d...
Well you are just being a unsmart person, mister dumbly-dumbo.
Climate change is now a totally proven factological theory, and it's also known to be 100% true. It's why all the bad weather happens, because Al Gore said so. What are you, stupid or something?
The Carbon Cycle is well understood. Of the CO2 emitted by human activity, half of that ends up in the atmosphere, the other half ends up in sinks. Half of that half goes into the ocean and the remaining half of that half goes into the soil.
The reservoir capacity of the ocean is vast, orders of magnitude greater than the atmosphere. What prevents all of the CO2 from diffusing into the ocean is 1) the equilibrium of atmospheric and ocean CO2 follows a non-linear roughly 10th-power relationship owing to the chain of chemical reactions by which CO2 is "dissolved" (rather chemically bonded into soluble carbonates) and 2) there is a finite rate of mixing of the surface ocean layer with the deep layer. This model of the ocean along with some assumptions regarding the cycling of carbon between the atmosphere and the soils on land gives an accurate trace of the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration from about 290 ppm at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution to over 400 ppm today. It also predicts the carbon isotope concentrations along with the seemingly short lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere from the rapid extinction of radioactive C14 from atmospheric H-bomb testing that (mostly) ended in the mid 1960s -- this has to do with the non-linear absorption of CO2 by the ocean, which exchanges CO2 molecules at a high rate but resists requires greater changes in atmospheric partial pressure of CO2 to shift the chemical equilibrium. This may seem counter to intuition, but this is well understood P-Chem.
Even though only half of the CO2 emitted by humans ends up in the atmosphere on account of the sinks, just about all of the increase in CO2 is the fault of humans. That is, unless there is a natural source of thermally stimulated emission of CO2 that needs to be taken into account.
It is perhaps not widely known, but there is a large fluctuation in the year-to-year increase in atmospheric CO2. The fluctuation is of comparable magnitude as the human contribution that is believed to be much more steady -- we have boom and bust cycles in industrial output, but the variations are not quite that much.
You may not have heard of this fluctuation, but NOAA's Carbon Cycle Guru Pieter Tans certainly knows about it. He attributes it to the effect of temperature changes on the rotting of fallen leaves and other litter in the tropical rainforests. He claims that the leaves that fall are very quickly rotted away, releasing most of their carbon back as CO2 into the atmosphere. His claim is that owing to the rapid decay of dead plant matter under tropical conditions, the reservoir is small. It accounts for the correlation between temperature and increase in atmospheric CO2 (called "net emissions), only occurring over short time windows. This correlation exists over longer time scales, but matters get fuzzy because human CO2 has ramped up over a time of gradual warming.
Were you to believe Pieter Tans (yes, believe as much of this is based on modeling assumptions), there is minimal effect of decades-long increase in atmospheric temperature in driving CO2 emissions from the soil -- the decades-long increase is all attributed to the decades long gradual increase in industrial emissions with minimal contribution from warming of soils. Were you to regard NOAA's top Carbon Cycle dude as wrong, that increasing temperature drives a positive feedback of CO2 emissions over longer times than the year-to-year fluctuations seen in the atmospheric CO2 "Keeling curve", which TFA does, you would have already seen the effect on atmospheric CO2 because the climate has indeed been warming for most of the 20th century -- it has been warming, has it not, that is, unless you are a Climate Change Denier?
If contra-Pieter Tans Head of the Carbon Cycle Section at NOAA the long term temperature trend is stimulating CO2 emissions from the soil in a positive feedback, there must be a countervailing negative feedback in the form of a commensurately higher absorption of CO2 by plants, an absorption that is sens
And nuclear is overly expensive in countries whose legal systems allow protesters to tie up projects with decades of worthless lawsuits. Build them in places like France and China that just ignore protesters, to a common design with as many factory built modules as possible.
Your 175 TW to 25 TW comparison refers to heat dissipation, which is trivial compared to the warming effect of greenhouse gas emitted by the fossil fuel share of our 25 TW.
Yes, our climate models are not very good at telling us how much of the weather we experience year on year is altered by manmade carbon. It’s just a good idea for us not to go on making the problem worse.
Absolutely wrong, where did you learn this nonsense? We aren't crawling up anything that could appear to be a natural spike, we've made our own spike in what should be a trough:
https://www.skepticalscience.c...
The earth should be cooling now, if there were no anthropogenic climate effects.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You seem to be asserting that an irregular temperature spike is happening right now, against the shorter-term factors I linked to earlier and the fact that we should be entering an ice age. Those spikes aren't happening at regular intervals, the interval between them has almost tripled over the last million years, as the article I linked to points out. You're expecting the next one to arrive at the same interval as the last one did, when you should instead expect it to arrive later. This would mean we should be in a cooling period which brings us back in line with the best scientific evidence.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If only we *were* crawling up on one of those spikes as you say...
The problem is, we're not crawling up one of those spikes, we're rocketing up on one, with no sign that we are about to level off (ie, our speed is still increasing).
Changes in tenths of degrees normally take several millenia, but here we are measuring such changes in mere decades, or two orders of magnitude faster than anything we ever seen or measured before.
Scroll down to the bottom of this picture to see how amazing recent measurements really are: https://xkcd.com/1732/
Please stick to the topic at hand, which is the geologic record of the earth.
Not Venus.
For as far back as we can directly observe, the earth has exhibited cycles of cooling and warming. If your argument is now that mankind has reversed this nearly 1 million-year-old trend, I would say that is not just an extraordinary claim, it is perhaps the most extraordinary claim in all of the history of science. And I would like to see the mountain of extraordinary evidence you have that proves your claim.
I just don't like sloppy science, period. Do a back of the envelope calculation of the amount of heating and cooling we are talking about to change an entire world's temperature from ice 2 miles thick to the wonderfully warm climate we have today, and then compare that to the total energy that would ever be trapped in a chaotic feedback system by a century-long use of fossil fuels. It's a pittance.
If you want to make wild claims, show me the science.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
The argument that nuclear power has stood still for the last 50 years is just as logical that wind power has stood still.
That's not the claim. The claim is that it hasn't advanced sufficiently to overcome its shortcomings. And it hasn't. Nobody has yet promoted commercially viable nuclear power. It always requires a government to wave a wand and change the rules on the say-so of a for-profit corporation.
Why is it that whenever windmills and solar panels are brought up we get, "Yeah, it still sucks now but just wait ten years!"
You are intentionally misrepresenting the argument in order to make your argument seem intelligent, but it is not. The fact is that polycrystalline PV panels were capable of earning back their energy investment in around seven years back in the 1970s, and most of the panels produced back then are still working fine. Today's thin-film panels pay back their energy investment in three years or less, in typical conditions, and today's PC panels are somewhere in between. The simplest truth is that we should have been installing PV panels all that time, not spending a damned dime on new nuclear.
Wind has had its bird-killing problems, but has always been commercially viable. Notably, you can insure them, because when something goes wrong with a wind turbine, you tend to get a small stationary fire and not a major disaster. The bird-killing problems have been solved, the high wind problems have been solved, the lightning strike problems are at least manageable, and there's really no reason not to increase wind capacity.
There are hundreds of nuclear power plants operating on Earth right now. We know how to build them to produce power safely, reliably, and cheaply.
You keep saying that, but the evidence runs contrary to your claim.
It's not "waste", it's fission products that contain some very valuable materials if we'd just get some politicians to take their head out of the 1970s.
It's not commercially viable to reprocess nuclear waste any more than it is to produce it in the first place.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There are hundreds of nuclear power plants operating on Earth right now. We know how to build them to produce power safely, reliably, and cheaply.
You keep saying that, but the evidence runs contrary to your claim.
My claims of nuclear power being safer, more reliable, and cheaper than solar can be proven with a few minutes on Google. Perhaps the point on being cheaper is debatable if one lives in a sunny location like Arizona but not everyone enjoys having that much sun. (Then again, I've talked to people that lived in Arizona and they didn't always "enjoy" that much sun.)
Tell me something, what is the price of solar power at midnight in Michigan? In January? No need to be precise, the nearest cent per kilowatt hour will do.
It's not commercially viable to reprocess nuclear waste any more than it is to produce it in the first place.
It's been done in France for a very long time now. It's failed in the USA since the government banned it for so long and it's real hard to compete with the government facilities that can rely on an endless supply of taxpayers' money to cover up their poor management.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
So far, you haven't provided any evidence whatsoever, only made a bunch of unfounded claims, so there's nothing to refute.
You mean like you made unfounded claims? How you provided no evidence? Is it that hard to click on the link I gave and then click on the results?
https://www.iaea.org/sites/def...
https://www.fool.com/investing...
Let me guess, because the data comes from the International Atomic Energy Agency and World Nuclear Association it cannot be trusted? I tried to find similar data from someone that might be more neutral on the topic. Why could that be? Perhaps because wind and solar aren't that safe.
Also, you didn't answer my question before. It should be easy enough to find. What is the price of solar power at midnight in Michigan? In January? I found the price for nuclear, about 16 cents per kilowatt hour.
https://www.eia.gov/state/rank...
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.