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Plants temporarily halted the acceleration of rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, new research suggests.
From 2002 through 2014, CO2 levels measured over the oceans climbed from around 372 parts per million to 397 parts per million. But the average rate of that rise remained steady despite increasing carbon emissions from human activities, researchers report online November 8 in Nature Communications. After pouring over climate measurements and simulations, the researchers attribute this steadying to changes in the relative amount of CO2 absorbed and released by plants.
The work is the first to clearly demonstrate that plants can affect the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 over long time periods, says study coauthor Trevor Keenan, an earth systems scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Still, human emissions remain the dominant driver of CO2 levels, he says. "If we keep emitting as much as we are, and what we emit keeps going up, then it won't matter very much what the plants do."
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday November 13 2016, @04:22AM
Or just wait. It only takes a few degrees increase in global temperature to do it naturally, it's happened many times in the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Sahara
Anyway, yes, we know that plants absorb CO2 for a very long time, and we also know that many plants actually grow more quickly when exposed to more CO2. Knowing that these are facts is different from being able to properly quantify the effects and work out the math to the point where you can predict what's actually going to happen, though, so hopefully this research will produce some usable information.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Sunday November 13 2016, @08:53AM
Waiting is rather irresponsible when the Sahara is expanding, largely due to destructive agricultural practices. Starting on a plan of reforestation with both passive (air wells, gabions, wind abatement etc.) and active systems (desalination, importing organic material etc.) is the quickest, smartest, and best thing we could do. Other deserts are even easier because most of them aren't full of sand. The middle east could be the paradise it was a couple thousand years ago if there was a large concerted effort to restore and preserve the environment in the right balance.