Preliminary data from an international team of researchers shows that 2023 — the hottest year on record — saw an alarming lapse in the Earth’s innate ability to swallow and neutralize carbon, with trees, soil, and plants together absorbing next to no carbon.
“Overall, models agreed that both the land sink and the ocean sink are going to decrease in the future as a result of climate change,” Andrew Watson, who helms the marine and atmospheric science group at Exeter University in England, told The Guardian. “But there’s a question of how quickly that will happen.” Watson added that most models “tend to show this happening rather slowly over the next 100 years or so,” but also pointed out that most models don’t incorporate seemingly consequential factors like worsening wildfires and deforestation. Regardless of whether it takes a decade or a century to get there, carbon sink models showing collapse over time are a daunting sign that global warming could soon accelerate.
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How is this possible tho? Don’t plants and trees need carbon?
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TLDR:
Preliminary data from an international team of researchers shows that 2023 — the hottest year on record — saw an alarming lapse in the Earth’s innate ability to swallow and neutralize carbon, with trees, soil, and plants together absorbing next to no carbon.
“Overall, models agreed that both the land sink and the ocean sink are going to decrease in the future as a result of climate change,” Andrew Watson, who helms the marine and atmospheric science group at Exeter University in England, told The Guardian. “But there’s a question of how quickly that will happen.”
Watson added that most models “tend to show this happening rather slowly over the next 100 years or so,” but also pointed out that most models don’t incorporate seemingly consequential factors like worsening wildfires and deforestation.
Regardless of whether it takes a decade or a century to get there, carbon sink models showing collapse over time are a daunting sign that global warming could soon accelerate.
☹️
How is this possible tho? Don’t plants and trees need carbon?
Well that’s not good.