From the UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA and the “blame the plants not the humans for climate model failures” department.
Carbon emissions by plant respiration will have large impact on climate
Study finds that emission rates are 30 percent higher than previously predicted
New findings by researchers from the University of Minnesota College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS), who partnered with scientists from across the world, suggest plant respiration is a larger source of carbon emissions than previously thought, and warn that as the world warms, this may reduce the ability of Earth’s land surface to absorb emissions due to fossil fuel burning.
The new findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, are based on the comprehensive GlobResp database, which is comprised of more than 10,000 measurements of carbon dioxide plant respiration from plant species around the globe. Merging this data with existing computer models of global land carbon cycling shows plant respiration has been a potentially underestimated source of carbon dioxide release. The study shows, carbon release by plant respiration may be around 30 percent higher than previously predicted.
As the mean global temperature increases, the researchers estimate respiration will increase significantly. Such increases may lower the future ability of global vegetation to offset carbon dioxide emissions caused by burning fossil fuels. CFANS Forest Resources Department Professor Peter Reich, Postdoctoral Associate Ethan Butler, Research Fellow Kirk Wythers and Research Associate Ming Chen teamed up with lead author, Chris Huntingford, of the United Kingdom’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and 15 other physiologists and modelers in the work.
“Plants both capture carbon dioxide and then release it by respiration. Changes to either of these processes in response to climate change have profound implications for how much ecosystems soak up carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels,” said Huntingford.
“Once we incorporate this data into state-of-the-art carbon cycling models, we are much closer to being able to accurately model carbon cycle feedbacks for climates across the globe,” said Reich. “In fact, this study provides the most up-to-date accounting of respiratory carbon releases from plants in terrestrial systems.”
“The implications of this study are enormous,” Ming emphasized. “The fact that plant respiration is likely 30 percent higher than previous estimates should warn all global modelers that an updated inspection is warranted regarding how we model carbon flows in and out of terrestrial ecosystems globally.”
###
Paper details: Huntingford, C., Atkin, O.K., Martinez-de la Torre, A., Mercado, L.M., Heskel, M.A., Harper, A.B., Bloomfield, K.J., O’Sullivan, O.S., Reich, P.B., Wythers, K.R., Butler, E.E., Chen, M., Griffin, K.L., Meir, P., Tjoelker, M.G., Turnbull, M.H., Sitch, S., Wiltshire, A. and Malhi, Y. (2017) Implications of improved representations of plant respiration in a changing climate. Nature Communications. DOI:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01774-z (open access)
Abstract
Land-atmosphere exchanges influence atmospheric CO2. Emphasis has been on describing photosynthetic CO2 uptake, but less on respiration losses. New global datasets describe upper canopy dark respiration (Rd) and temperature dependencies. This allows characterisation of baseline Rd, instantaneous temperature responses and longer-term thermal acclimation effects. Here we show the global implications of these parameterisations with a global gridded land model. This model aggregates Rd to whole-plant respiration Rp, driven with meteorological forcings spanning uncertainty across climate change models. For pre-industrial estimates, new baseline Rd increases Rp and especially in the tropics. Compared to new baseline, revised instantaneous response decreases Rp for mid-latitudes, while acclimation lowers this for the tropics with increases elsewhere. Under global warming, new Rdestimates amplify modelled respiration increases, although partially lowered by acclimation. Future measurements will refine how Rdaggregates to whole-plant respiration. Our analysis suggests Rp could be around 30% higher than existing estimates.
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Interesting: dark respiration (Rd), I first I thought they were aligning dark respiration with dark energy / dark matter so a quick trip back to the 1970’s found the increase of C02 around the leaves during darkness indicated the sequestering of CO2 was not happening without light….. 🙂
“Enormous implications” Really?
They imply that the models assume plants are storing 30% more carbons compounds than reality. If the fabulous GCMs assume that, How many other ridiculous assumptions are there? Many surely.
” If the fabulous GCMs assume that”
They don’t.
the whole photosynthesis process use up HUNDREDS OF WATTS (tens for the synthesis part, and much more for the water cycle part). A single 1% of this process is more important that the so-called “GHG forcing”. 30% unknown is just staggering
If “they don’t”, they obviously have are crap.
And if they did, with wrong numbers, so they are, too.
Either way they are crap.
It’s another great example of inability to join two dots.
That they are so wrong with number (and there is no reason to believe they are correct now) doesn’t even give them pause for thought that maybe their other estimates might be wrong too. It must always be worse than we thought, never better than we thought.
To clarify a factor which may be undefined in some minds I will add the following. Plants do not put out CO2 (“respiration”) in a ratio matching 1:1 what take in performing photosynthesis.
For variation among even members of a kind of plant & how that ratio alters over the course of a year see Figure 1 & 2 of Gratani et al. (2007) “Relationship between net photosynthesis and leaf respiration in Mediterranean evergreen species”; free full text available on-line. Incidentally, the reports 1st paragraph mentions prior published research predicting 35% under-estimation of plant respiration (I haven’t cross referenced to see if any researchers cited by Gratani in 2007 were also involved in the original post above).
Edit: – last sentence delete word “under” , insert “CO2 loss”.
OCO-2 data backs this up. Tropical forests (Amazon, Congo) are sources not sinks. Reversal of paradigms.
Points toward temperate NH forests and the ocean phytoplankton as the true biological sinks.
This also explains why the Biosphere-2 experiment had such a huge CO2 build-up problems.
Not enough ocean.
According to these authors plant respiration is significant but they don’t know how significant..
https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/94/5/647/151785
These authors said that plants respire more but grow faster with higher levels of CO2
https://phys.org/news/2009-02-high-co2-boosts-respiration-potentially.html
This lot think that everyone else has underestimated CO2 uptake by plants
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/44/15774.full
Now these chaps think that land plants respire 11 times as much CO2 as produced by humans
[naughty plants]
http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/plants-release-more-carbon-dioxide-into-atmosphere-than-expected
And then if we’ve got more CO2 in the atmosphere the percentage of oxygen might increase [a good thing?]
https://www.quora.com/If-plants-take-in-carbon-dioxide-and-release-oxygen-would-an-increase-in-CO2-in-the-environment-cause-plants-to-produce-more-O2
The science is settled ?
“Plants both capture carbon dioxide and then release it by respiration. Changes to either of these processes in response to climate change have profound implications for how much ecosystems soak up carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels,” said Huntingford.
“Corporations both get revenue and expend it. Changes to either of these processes in response to taxation change have profound implications for how much the economic system retains capital from net earnings.” Say more or less all economists.
Do corporate revenues and expenditures tell us how the economic is growing or do we know the economy is growing because the GDP grows?
Hint: GDP is measured at factor cost, the factors being capital and labor (i.e. jobs).
What we know is that the world has been greening at the same time it has been accumulating capital and creating jobs.
NASA study: Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
So does the CO2 flux tell us how much plants act as carbon sinks by inhaling and exhaling or does the accumulated green matter that NASA has measured tell us that the net CO2 retained is increasing?
Hint: carbon and oxygen (CO2) and H2O form sugars, starches and cellulose that plants incorporate into their green matter.
Study finds that emission rates are 30 percent higher than previously predicted
=============
so plants are growing 30% faster than predicted. while in a sane world this would be a good thing, in the newspeak world this becomes a bad thing. everything to do with. co2 is automatically worse than we thought. which means previous thoughts are never accurate.
in a greening world the underlying assumption that nature is in balance except for human emissions is clearly wrong.
“this may reduce the ability of Earth’s land surface to absorb emissions due to fossil fuel burning.”…
======
if something “may” be true it may also be false. this sentence tells us nothing.
why do scientists feel the need to speculate? where is the science in this?
So plants aren’t rabid marxists, got it. I wonder if old communists ever lament their ideology has been overtaken by worshipers of the CO2 molecule? I mean they did frown on religion at one time.
“For pre-industrial estimates, new baseline Rd increases Rp and especially in the tropics. Compared to new baseline, revised instantaneous response decreases Rp for mid-latitudes, while acclimation lowers this for the tropics with increases elsewhere. Under global warming, new Rdestimates amplify modelled respiration increases, although partially lowered by acclimation”
I’m not slogging through the article. Mostly because botany was a long time ago. However, here are a few things that shout at me from the abstract which tells me that while 30% may be higher–the observational bias still prevails. These things are:
1. Pre-industrial estimates. BUNK. Based on a supposition of what was there inferred by guestimate adjustments. In other words, the possibility of a confirmed maybe.
2. Compared to the new baseline: a new baseline based on No. 1.
3. Under global warming: See No. 1 and No. 2.
4. Amplify modelled (spelled wrong) respiration increases. Amplify means more, increases mean more..exactly WHAT did they modell(intentionally spelled wrong)? Observation bias.
After that abstract leads me to the possibility of a confirmed suspicion that this article is nothing more than bird cage lining.
I agree with the retired science teacher…where the hell is the real science? Biology and botany are real complex sciences, why in the hell are they tied with this climate schtick we are all subjected to? It’s very freaking simple here folks: WE DON’T KNOW 1/4 of biology–have really only begun to study it outside of medicinal purposes so why the heck are we cowtying to the arrogance of the 1800’s when it was declared that there was no reason to study science because everything was already known?
I think NASA needs several more trillions of dollars to be able to grow
spiderworts on the space station. Maybe in past experiments they forgot the sunlight.
My scientific analysis says that plants don’t need us, but we need plants. [except for rotating the bottle].
Oooo! Those wicked plants! We should get rid of them all.
Send them to Drax for incineration !!!
so plants respire
more co2 than we thought,
and this will add to GHG warming.
got it.
ye, they pump CO2 out of nowhere, you know, more of it now than before.
You “got it” as usual. Wrong.
From a carbon cycle point of view, having it wrong 30%, or even 2x, isn’t very important. 30% more out, 30% more in, pretty much the same balance. No big deal.
However, from a photosynthesis process point of view, this is STAGGERING.
the whole photosynthesis process use up HUNDREDS OF WATTS (tens for the synthesis part, and much more for the water cycle part that comes with it). A single 1% of this process is more important that the so-called “GHG forcing”. 30% unknown is just staggering, and anything that use these number, Earth’s energy budget, Models, etc. just got down the drain, especially when they pretended to have it right, despite such a huge flaw.
“The implications of this study are enormous,” Ming emphasized. “The fact that plant respiration is likely 30 percent higher than previous estimates should warn all global modelers that an updated inspection is warranted regarding how we model carbon flows in and out of terrestrial ecosystems globally.”
So Ming is suggesting that climate models be updated to account for this extra plant respiration to make them even more alarming. That way they can overestimate future warming even more than they currently do. Great!
Regardless of how much CO2 is released by plants, they are a net consumer of CO2. That hasn’t changed. The fact that they are not 100% efficient in converting CO2 to energy does not mean they are CO2 emitters. They use up more CO2 than they emit. Plant growth depends on it. So the more plants there are, the more CO2 is extracted from the atmosphere. This study does not change that fact.
From the abstract-
“To enable planning for climate change requires robust descriptions of atmospheric CO2 capture by photosynthesis (gross primary productivity; GPP) and release by plant (and soil) respiration.”
I did not find a description of the way that the researchers found that plants
release CO2. I have done experiments which confirm that the soil does.
The following article confirms my findings.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100324/full/news.2010.147.html
The CO2 emitted by the soil is not the topsoil digesting its self. The excess CO2
being measured is upwelling natural gas being being oxidized by methanotrophs,
enriching the topsoil and emitting CO2.
The reason CO2 is a trailing indicator of temperature is that the hydrocarbons rising
from great depth rise slightly faster as the earth gently warms from the LIA or any
extended cold period. The microbial culture blooms to consume the additional
“food”, increasing the CO2 output.
I have done experiments which confirm that natural gas is found below the
topsoil horizon. If the soil is not too wet or not frozen, the microbial culture
consumes it and converts it to CO2.
The methane balance put out by the USEPA several years ago claims that
upland topsoil is a 30TG sink for CH4. It is not. The hydrocarbons found in topsoil
upwell from below. When CH4 hits the atmosphere, it does not sink, it rises.
They do not understand the carbon cycle.