With Warming, Soil Releases More CO2... Though Less Over Time as
Microbes Adapt Warmer temperatures from a warming climate force
the release of carbon dioxide from soils into the atmosphere,
driving even more climate warming. That's the bad news. The good
news is that the effect diminishes over time—over 18 years, and
counting. This according to a new paper just published in Nature
Climate Change. We know that microorganisms in the soil release
10 times the CO2 that humans release on a yearly basis. These
soil processes are normally kept in check by plants, which
uptake C02 from the atmosphere. But a warming climate is driving
changes in the carbon cycle. To examine how that might be
unfolding on at least one patch of our planet—the Harvard Forest
Long-Term Ecological Research site in Massachusetts—the
researchers warmed two plots with underground cables, one plot
for two years, the other for 18. They then measured the
efficiency of soil organisms in utilizing food sources that come
from plants. Here's some o