Earth Absorbs More of Our CO2 Emissions: Science Even as Man's
output of Earth-warming CO2 has risen, so has the capacity of
plants and the oceans to absorb it, scientists said Wednesday,
but warned this may not last forever. Carbon storage by land and
sea, known as carbon sinks, has more than doubled in the past 50
years from about 2.4 billion tonnes in 1960 to some five billion
tonnes in 2010, said a study in Nature. At the same time,
fossil-fuel CO2 emissions rose almost four-fold. "The growth
rate of atmospheric CO2 continues to rise because fossil fuel
emissions are accelerating not because sinks are diminishing,"
researcher Ashley Ballantyne of the University of Colorado's
geology department told AFP. The finding was contrary to
widespread expectations that carbon sinks were slowing their CO2
uptake. "We were somewhat surprised by this result because
several recent studies have been published showing that the land
and oceans have been taking up less CO2," said Ballantyne. "We
discovered that the Earth c