Friday 30 December 2016

Another positive feedback

We Have Released a Monster: Previously Frozen Soil Is "Breathing Out" Greenhouse Gases

Dahr Jamail

Katey Walter Anthony, a leading scientist in studying the escape of methane, at her research site where methane is collecting beneath the ice, in Fairbanks, Alaska, on October 21, 2011. With temperatures warming across much of that region, which scientists primarily believe is because of the rapid human release of greenhouse gases, permafrost is also warming, and signs are emerging that frozen carbon may be destabilizing. (Josh Haner/The New York Times) 



A study published in the journal Nature has revealed an alarming new climate feedback loop: As Earth's atmosphere continues to warm from anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD), soils are respirating carbon -- that is, carbon is being literally baked out of the soils.



Microorganisms in soil generally consume carbon, then release CO2 as a byproduct. Large areas of the planet -- such as Alaska, northern Canada, Northern Europe and large swaths of Siberia in Russia -- have previously been too cold for this process to occur. However, they are now warming up, and soil respiration is happening there. As a result, these places are contributing far, far more CO2 and methane to the atmosphere than they ever have.



This phenomenon is already evidenced by a recently released study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which Truthout reported on recently.



This means that even if all human fossil fuel emissions were halted immediately, soils would continue to release approximately the same amount of CO2 and methane emissions as the amount produced by the fossil fuel industry during the mid-20th century.




To read the article GO HERE

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.