from Northern Arizona University
Study finds accelerated soil carbon loss, increasing the rate of climate change
Research published in Science today found that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cause soil microbes to produce more carbon dioxide, accelerating climate change.
Two Northern Arizona University researchers led the study, which challenges previous understanding about how carbon accumulates in soil. Increased levels of CO2 accelerate plant growth, which causes more absorption of CO2 through photosynthesis.
Until now, the accepted belief was that carbon is then stored in wood and soil for a long time, slowing climate change. Yet this new research suggests that the extra carbon provides fuel to microorganisms in the soil whose byproducts (such as CO2) are released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.
“Our findings mean that nature is not as efficient in slowing global warming as we previously thought,” said Kees Jan van Groenigen, research fellow at the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society at NAU and lead author of the study. “By overlooking this effect of increased CO2 on soil microbes, models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may have overestimated the potential of soil to store carbon and mitigate the greenhouse effect.”
In order to better understand how soil microbes respond to the changing atmosphere, the study’s authors utilized statistical techniques that compare data to models and test for general patterns across studies. They analyzed published results from 53 different experiments in forests, grasslands and agricultural fields around the world. These experiments all measured how extra CO2 in the atmosphere affects plant growth, microbial production of carbon dioxide, and the total amount of soil carbon at the end of the experiment.
“We’ve long thought soils to be a stable, safe place to store carbon, but our results show soil carbon is not as stable as we previously thought,” said Bruce Hungate, director of the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society at NAU and study author. “We should not be complacent about continued subsidies from nature in slowing climate change.”
Carbon, The black solid?, Is this not just a mis-nomer for CO2?
Or is Carbon, C now magically evil as well?
Never mind your “Carbon Footprint”, What about your carbon foot?
Human beings are built from the evil stuff. C
A misanthropists dream come true.
It’s time school children learned to loathe themselves.
Climate change accelerating, dirt blamed
————
Oh noes – dirty weather!
“Research published in Science” says it all . . .
BTW, animal respiration also exceeds all human CO2 activity by orders of magnitude. Man alone emits 3.5 gt/yr just by breathing (wonder how Barbara Boxer would like hearing that she belches out half a ton of it a year on her own?); man is ~1/2 of 1% of total animal biomass, and a relatively low CO2 exhaler per lb of body weight compared to most other animals (especially birds and insects) – that points to up to 700 gt just from animals alone!
This is really very interesting. Obviously, these microorganisms are the source of all our problems. We can fix that with a tax on all these pesky microbes. After all they’re a huge problem causing tooth decay and all manners of diseases. But some of those little critters are useful for producing beer, break, vaccines etc. So we can create a market in microbe credits to compensate. Then everything will be fine and dandy.
Wait, the soil emits CO2? So,climate change might be natural? Who knew?
Janice Moore says: April 26, 2014 at 5:53 pm
Good point, Mr. X. (at 5:46pm): “… doesn’t something need to be in motion before it can “accelerate” in the way described here?”
They are banking on it warming again… eventually…. and ALL THAT HEAT was…etc, etc.
This is why they are sweating (pun intended) on an El Nino either this or next year.
Yes, indeed, Bruce C. (at 9:18pm).
But, whether sí El Niño o no El Niño, AGW will still be exactly where it is now and where it always has been:
DEAD IN THE WATER.
Hard aground on the Rock of Reality.
Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaa!
(glad to know my posts aren’t invisible (smile) — and now you know that yours aren’t either)
#(:))
my wife and I started spring clean-up yesterday, maybe that’s what these people need a “spring clean-up” in their brain cavities there might be an overwhelming amount of “dirt” up there reducing the amount of healthy O2.
Old news recycled; “What is old is new again” …
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/boreal-forests-found-to-be-net-ghg-emitters.html
http://fire.biol.wwu.edu/hooper/Clark2004FEEtropicalforests&globalwarming.pdf
It has been known/posited for a long time that soil microbes can sequester or release CO2. Like all the rest of “Climate Science”, it seems that the results depend on how “testing” is done and what “models” are used and the bent of the researcher.
Conclusion: AU needs a grant for further research. 😒
So who paid for this study?
Pure pr@pola
It’s pretty simple: if your research shows that Earth’s atmosphere can, in any way shape or form, enter a “runaway” condition, whether it’s heating, cooling, saturated moisture, acid rain, acid oceans, lightning, fire, drought, locusts, or anything else… then your research is wrong.
As usual, old news… If plants grow harder, as is the case with more CO2 in the atmosphere, then more debris is falling at the end of the growing season and microbes have more fuel to break down and emit CO2 again.
But what counts is the net balance at the end of the seasonal cycle. That can be derived from the oxygen balance: fossil fuel burning uses oxygen. As the use and burning efficiency is known with reasonable accuracy, one can calculate the total amount of oxygen used. The difference between calculated and measured oxygen use is what the biosphere as a whole (plants, animals, insects, microbes,…) has used or produced. The net CO2 uptake, expressed as carbon, since 1990 was about 1 GtC/year. Thus the whole biosphere stores more carbon in different forms than it produces as CO2. See:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
The only point that the above work shows is that the biological carbon cycle gets faster with extra CO2 in the atmosphere, but that doesn’t say anything about the net use or release of CO2…
RobRoy says:
April 26, 2014 at 7:26 pm
Carbon, The black solid?, Is this not just a mis-nomer for CO2?
Or is Carbon, C now magically evil as well?
CO2 exists mainly in the atmosphere, in the oceans it is mainly bicarbonate (93%), carbonate (6%) and only 1% CO2. In vegetation it is mainly cellulose, sugars, starch,…
To make a balance comparison possible, alle different forms are calculated as carbon equivalents. For CO2/C that is a factor 44/12 = 3.67
…Climate change accelerating, dirt blamed..
That’s not a very polite way to talk about Professor Mann…
Accelerating? Wow, I guess the real-world observations are an illusion then.
The way the sentence is phrased you would think that man’s extra co2 has NOT lead to biosphere greening. They are biosphere greening deniers.
I hope the researchers didn’t miss bit of research back in January of this year.
Nature – 08 January 2014
“Mycorrhiza-mediated competition between plants and decomposers drives soil carbon storage”
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12901
Total hog wash:
Smog in London caused by Sahara Dust: http://rt.com/news/smog-britain-sahara-pollution-981/
The Colossal China Dust Storm: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2014/04/china-being-eaten-colossal-dust-storm/8967/
And there are a whole hole bunch of volcano’s erupting.
As for the “AGW is real” bubble from MSM: (Europe had a very mild winter they claim but they don’t tell which part of Europe and the US winter is caused by Global Warming)
Now how about all the other places currently hit by cold and snow?
Like the China Blizzard: http://www.freshplaza.com/article/120137/China-Xinjiang-hit-hard-by-blizzard-causing-81-millions-of-yuan-in-damages
The Ural: http://iceagenow.info/2014/04/russias-urals-severe-springtime-snowstorm-123-years/
Rumania: http://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/actualitate/cod-galben-de-ploi-si-ninsori-pana-sambata-dimineata-drumuri-blocate-si-masini-inzapezite-in-harghita-si-suceava.html
The US winter: http://iceagenow.info/2014/04/14-inches-snow-colorado/
Canadian Winter Alerts: http://weather.gc.ca/warnings/index_e.html
Latest start Great Lakes Shipping: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/thunder-bay-port-sees-latest-ever-start-to-shipping-season-1.2608763
And now we have the polar bears threatened by too much ice: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/alaskan-polar-bears-threatened-too-much-spring-ice-0
But, no, no, the obsession remains with the carbon “pollution” which of course is all our fault.
How much longer are we going to take all their BS.
floras metabolic produkt is oxygen.
faunas metabolic produkt is co2.
bacterias belong to fauna.
gaining energie of nutrition is by combustion, oxidation.
new findings – we heard in elementary school.
brg – Hans
Where’s the quantification? If models have over estimated, then by how much? 1%? 99%? I am guessing closer to the 1%. And how much of the total CO2 emissions were we hoping the soil would sequester? I imagine that is a small fraction to begin with. And the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 100 years is having a very small to negligible impact on climate right now, and by all measures that small impact is largely positive.
In summation, this article is reporting a small change in an insignificant process that has a minor impact on the changing concentration of a trace gas in the atmosphere that is having no discernible impact on climate.
I can’t see a link to the abstract above, so
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/04/23/science.1249534
So it is another study claiming that a particular set of carbon sinks is going to max out ‘sooner than we thought’ despite the fact that, in aggregate, they are still reportedly rapidly increasing in capacity and/or rate.
I guess the authors are must be too polite to say which of the other sinks have also been modeled wrong. But they are still welcome to try to wake me up when the biosphere reaches equilibrium.
Last year, CO2 emissions were 38 billion tons or about 4.5 ppm. CO2 concentrations rose by about 2.5 ppm and, therefore, the net natural absorption of CO2 by oceans, plants and soils was 2.0 ppm.
This net natural absorption rate has been rising since about 1900 (although the last few years might be down some). Back to 1750 here.
http://s28.postimg.org/fww10o565/CO2_Nat_Absorp_1750_2013.png
Climate change is accelerating – that’s why temperatures are not rising. A little more acceleration, and we will get a new ice age. The usual “enviro-climatologist” logic.
Occasional aerial spraying with a bactericide will fix this problem especially if warmers are in the vicinity.
…the study’s authors utilized statistical techniques that compare data to models…
Ah, more computer games then.
Jolly good.
Carry on.