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Study: Soil CO2 Emissions Have Increased Over the Years
Image Source: Stock.Xchng. By: Heimdall.
Did you know that soil emits carbon dioxide?
Not only does it emit CO2, but the analysis of 439 studies show that the emissions have increased over the last few decades. The study was conducted by terrestrial carbon research scientists, Allison Thomson and Ben Bond-Lamberty. They took 1,434 data points from nearly 50 years of soil-emissions data collected from over 400 studies around the world. Measurements were compared by accounting for differences between the studies, such as CO2 level gauging techniques and mean annual temperatures. Then, the data for each year was totaled, allowing the scientists to create a global estimation of the amount of CO2 that moves from the soil to the atmosphere.
The study showed that the amount of CO2 transferred from ground to air increased by 0.1% per year from 1989 to 2008. This was also a time when soil measuring techniques finally became standardized. By 2008, the annual worldwide total was nearly 98 billion tons—that’s 10 times greater than the amount humans now contribute to the atmosphere every year. Biogeochemist, Eric Davidson, commented:
“There are a few plausible explanations for this trend, but the most tempting, and perhaps most likely explanation is that increasing temperatures have increased rates of decomposition of soil organic matter, which has increased the flow of CO2. If true, this is an important finding: that a positive feedback to climate change is already occurring at a detectable level in soils.”
It is currently unknown what has caused the increase in soil emissions for certain. However, plants and microbes seem to be the 2 sources focused on the most at the moments. On one hand, plant roots could be emitting more CO2 of their own. This would cause higher rates of photosynthesis, but no net increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. On the other hand, warmer soil means more microbes are put to work. These microbes break down old sources of carbon, which would cause a net increase of atmospheric CO2.
Needless to say, Thomson and Bond-Lamberty intend to do more studying of the soil emissions. If you are interested in the study, you can keep track of their ongoing soil-emissions database here.
By Heidi Marshall
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Lead image by Wolfgang Staudt (source: Flickr)
Tags: CO2 emissions, greenhouse gas, increased emissions, SOIL, soil respiration, study
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