Biogeochemist: “… 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.”
One of the single greatest concerns of climate scientists is that human-caused warming will cause amplifying feedbacks in the carbon-cycle. Such positive feedbacks, whereby an initial warming releases carbon into the air that causes more warming, would increase both the speed and scale of climate change, greatly complicating both mitigation and adaptation.
The most worrisome amplifying feedback is the defrosting of the tundra (see “Science stunner: Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores destabilizing and venting). Another major, related feedback now appears to be soil respiration, whereby plants and microbes in the soil give off more carbon dioxide as the planet warms.
As Nature reports (article here, study here, subs. req’d), a review of 439 studies around the world — including 306 performed from 1989 to 2008 — found “soil respiration had increased by about 0.1% per year between 1989 and 2008, the span when soil measurement techniques had become standardized.” Physorg.com interviewed the lead author, who said bluntly:
“There’s a big pulse of carbon dioxide coming off of the surface of the soil everywhere in the world,” said ecologist Ben Bond-Lamberty of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “We weren’t sure if we’d be able to measure it going into this analysis, but we did find a response to temperature.”
The increase in carbon dioxide given off by soils — about 0.1 petagram (100 million metric tons) per year since 1989 — won’t contribute to the greenhouse effect unless it comes from carbon that had been locked away out of the system for a long time, such as in Arctic tundra. This analysis could not distinguish whether the carbon was coming from old stores or from vegetation growing faster due to a warmer climate. But other lines of evidence suggest warming is unlocking old carbon, said Bond-Lamberty, so it will be important to determine the sources of extra carbon.
Indeed the study itself concludes:
The available data are, however, consistent with an acceleration of the terrestrial carbon cycle in response to global climate change.
Moreover, a major study in the February issue of the journal Ecology by Finnish researchers, “Temperature sensitivity of soil carbon fractions in boreal forest soil,” has a similar conclusion. The Finnish Environment Institute, which led the study, explained the results in a release, “Soil contributes to climate warming more than expected – Finnish research shows a flaw in climate models“:
According to the results, the climatic warming will inevitably lead to smaller carbon storage in soil and to higher carbon dioxide emissions from forests. These emissions will further warm up the climate, and as a consequence the emissions will again increase. This interaction between the carbon dioxide emissions from soil and the warming of climate will accelerate the climate change.
The present climate models underestimate the increase of carbon dioxide emissions from soil in a warmer climate. Thereby they also underestimate the accelerating impact of the largest carbon storage in forests on the climate change. This result is also essential with respect to the climate policy measures concerning forests. The carbon storage of forests is, more than previously assumed, sensitive to climatic warming, and the carbon sink capacity of forests is endangered. To maintain the carbon storage, the accumulation of organic material in forests should increase. However, this is not compatible with the present bioenergy goals for forests and with the more and more intensive harvesting of biomass in forests.
Returning to the Nature study, the review was quite comprehensive:
They compiled data about how much carbon dioxide has leaked from plants and microbes in soil in an openly available database. To maintain consistency, they selected only data that scientists collected via the now-standard methods of gas chromatography and infrared gas analysis. The duo compared 1,434 soil carbon data points from the studies with temperature and precipitation data in the geographic regions from other climate research databases.
After subjecting their comparisons to statistical analysis, the researchers found that the total amount of carbon dioxide being emitted from soil in 2008 was more than in 1989. In addition, the rise in global temperatures correlated with the rise in global carbon flux.
And the study also confirmed worries about the unlocking of carbon in the permafrost:
Previous climate change research shows that Arctic zones have a lot more carbon locked away than other regions. Using the complete set of data collected from the studies, the team estimated that the carbon released in northern — also called boreal — and Arctic regions rose by about 7 percent; in temperate regions by about 2 percent; and in tropical regions by about 3 percent, showing a trend consistent with other work.
The researchers made clear that more research needs to be done to make definitive conclusions about exactly what is happening to soils around the world. Yet as the Nature story notes:
“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,” says Eric Davidson, a biogeochemist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts. “If true, this is an important finding: that a positive feedback to climate change is already occurring at a detectable level in soils.”
As I noted in the methane post, the National Science Foundation press release (click here), warned “Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.” The NSF is normally a very staid organization. If they are worried, everybody should be.
We are simply playing with nitroglycerin to risk crossing tipping points that could accelerate multiple amplifying feedbacks:
- The drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires).
- The destruction of the tropical wetlands
- Decelerating growth in tropical forest trees “” thanks to accelerating carbon dioxide
- Wildfires and Climate-Driven forest destruction by pests
- The desertification-global warming feedback
- The saturation of the ocean carbon sink
UPDATE: I would note that we’ve only warmed about 1°F over the past half-century (and indeed, far less than that over the time span of the 306 recent studies the form the basis of the primary conclusion). We are headed to 9°F warming on our current emissions path. The few studies that look at such emissions paths and attempt to model carbon cycle feedbacks including soil find they can add as much as 250 ppm and 2.7°F warming this century (see “Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model,” subs. req’d). Indeed, one very recent analysis of a high emissions, high feedback scenario finds impacts that are almost unimaginable by mid-century (see UK Met Office: Catastrophic climate change, 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 27°F in the Arctic, could happen in 50 years, but “we do have time to stop it if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon”).
It is increasingly clear that if the world strays significantly above 450 ppm atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide for any length of time, we will find it unimaginably difficult to stop short of 800 to 1000 ppm, which would inflict on countless future generations Hell and High Water .
Related Posts:
- Science stunner: “Clouds Appear to Be Big, Bad Player in Global Warming” “” an amplifying feedback (sorry Lindzen and fellow disinformers)
- Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius”
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Hey guys,
I have been reading this site and it seems that the posters on here are among the most knowledgeable I have ever seen with regards to GW. I would like to have the following question answered that has been nagging at me…
Over the past year, I read several books on global warming as well as everything I could find online. One common thread in everything I read was the following: if the permafrost begins to release it’s methane….LOOK OUT!
Then last night I found the following on this site:
http://tinyurl.com/yddcos2
I realize that we can’t know for certain whether this is a new phenomenon or something that has been going on for awhile unnoticed. Assuming that this is something new, could we theoretically be talking about a massive spike in temperature over the next year or 2, dramatically increasing the myriad known (and unknown) positive feedbacks?
Apparently none of the models to date have considered methane release in their calculations, and since it is by far the most worrisome of the feedbacks (at least that I’ve read about)…well you get the point.
Combine that with the melting arctic and the fact that 2010 is supposed to break all temperature records, combined with new positive feedbacks (such as soil emitting CO2….not to mention the feedbacks that we DON’T know about yet!) could we be talking about a massive spike in temperatures THIS YEAR (a la James Locklove)?
I really look forward to your responses because the more I read about feedbacks and the recent methane release discovered, the more it’s looking….well, let’s just say BAD.
Thanks so much for your time.
Sounds great. Is there anywhere on the planet not leaking carbon?
Here is a question. I keep reading how we have ~1 degree of warming in the pipeline (climate inertia?). When does the pipeline release this 1 degree?
To me it seems once this gets out we are in trouble. But what do I know.
Great post Joe. And the great questions are indeed: How bad? and When?
We have wonderful climate models and scenarios. The IPCC models (now about 10 years old) give us glimpses into the year 2100…But a 90 year view feels much like a form of delay and deny.
Where are the short term projections? The real need is to plan for 5 and 10 years out.
I check in with Steve Easterbrook, http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/ who leads climate model software… but who has active and current models?
“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,”
That is quite likely to be one correct explanation. But is it also not possible, or even more significant, that in addition to increased rates of decomposition, an increasing volume of dieback of vegetation (from “inexorably increasing” background toxic tropospheric ozone, (see http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2010/03/hit-road-jack.html) is increasing the flow of CO2?
Scientists living in the Alaska Tundra and the Boreal Forests of Alaska and monitoring those areas over several decades, (permanent stations, successive scientists) appeared about a year ago on a special PBS program showing the following changes due to GW:
1. The Boreal Forests are dying on a large scale due to beetle infestation caused by higher temperatures. Previously the beetle’s larvas would freeze to death in the harsh winter, but not as many die now.
2. In the summer, with open space, the Tundra changed from net CO2 absorber to net emitter due to higher temperatures.
3. In the winter, the snow covered tundra has lower level of snow and some vegetation emerged above the snow. This leads to lower reflection from the snow, that is, higher net energy absorption from the sun.
Here are to studys which come to mind.
Effects of CO2 and nutrient availability on mineral weathering in controlled tree growth experiments
Our results suggest that increased carbonate weathering may occur under increased atmospheric CO2 and in fertile soils.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003GBioC..17b..10W
Interactions Between Plant Growth and Soil Nutrient Cycling Under Elevated CO2: a Meta-Analysis.
These results suggest that the main factor controlling the direction of the feedback between plant growth and soil nutrient cycling under elevated CO2 is nutrient availability; increased plant growth and soil C sequestration under elevated CO2 can only be sustained in the long-term when additional mineral nutrients are supplied. On the contrary, in unfertilized systems, elevated CO2 induces a negative feedback loop between plant growth and soil nutrient cycling by enhancing microbial N immobilization.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFMGC13B1229D
Here’s a selection of prominent articles in my local Canadian paper business section….business as usual.
CEOs see oil as important energy source of the future
Renewable power on the rise, but won’t replace fossil fuels
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/technology/CEOs+important+energy+source+future/2722764/story.html
Coal producers bullish on Asian demand
http://www.vancouversun.com/Coal+producers+bullish+Asian+demand/2724219/story.html
A structural shift in the global market for steelmaking coal has British Columbia producers preparing for a major surge in production. …
Oilsands lobbying moves EU to look at easing fuel standards
http://www.vancouversun.com/Coal+producers+bullish+Asian+demand/2724219/story.html
A new discussion paper to be debated by a panel this week suggests that European officials will remove restrictions on fuel from the oilsands in its draft legislation, pending “further review.”
I have been reading your stuff for awhile and find it very informative. The recent attacks on scientists are obviously due to the economic crisis. People are generally under stress. Nayone who says to people “Change your life sinner” while they rea obviously suffering anyway will be a tartget for attack. Noah was laughed at as an eccentric early on but when the water started rising he was to blame for the crisis. The same phenomenon can be found of people attacking Peak Oil preachers when oil prices rise. It is a no win situation. Get used to it. Cassandras have a hard time getting heard whenever they live.
Personally I don’t know as I can do much to save the planet but it sounds really bad for the next decades. Maybe water rise and such will just accelerate decade for decade, causing economic colapse (due to farming being impossible due to drought,etc.). So mabe the feedbacks will cause gigadeath and civilizational collapse, thereby reversing the whole trend. We can only hope.
Riddle me this! I am a believer in climate change. I believe we are in trouble.
But if my math is correct…100 million metric tons of carbon doesn’t seem like that big a deal, considreing what we emit per year (80 gigabillion metric tons?? ).
Before I am skewered…I am 100% worried about the future. I am a believer in total honesty good or bad.
Please explain to me how this rate of carbon release is that bad compared to just getting Jamaica to stop driving cars??
I suspect it could get worse..but this article doesn’t explain how….
[JR: Right now, this increase in soil carbon emissions equals about 1% of human-caused emissions. Then again, we've only warmed about .35°F during the two decades of this study, and only about 1°F over the past half century. So given that we are looking at 9°F warming this century, yes, I think this is something to worry about. Models that endeavor to couple carbon in add as much as 250 ppm ppm this century from the feedback.]
Global C emissions in the form of CO2 only are roughly 8 billion tons C/year, making that 100 million tons of CO2 (25 million tons C, roughly) about 0.3% of anthro emissions.
I think the reason this soil finding is worrying is that while it’s not a huge share of total CO2 additions now, it could get larger with continued warming, and every additional ton from this natural source is another ton we have to avoid somewhere else. Getting our emissions down to the generally accepted level (80% reduction over 1990 levels by 2050) is already a gigantic challenge; we don’t need to see it made any tougher.
astrerisk says:
“Combine that with the melting arctic and the fact that 2010 is supposed to break all temperature records, combined with new positive feedbacks (such as soil emitting CO2….not to mention the feedbacks that we DON’T know about yet!) could we be talking about a massive spike in temperatures THIS YEAR (a la James Locklove)?”
AGW’s direct impact is to increase the strength of the greenhouse effect, which slows down the loss of infrared (heat energy) to space. This warms the surface. Over 90% of the accumulating energy is absorbed by the oceans, the remainder is melting the cryosphere. The short term diurnal heat exchange warming the land and atmosphere is small in comparison as the land and atmosphere very quickly absorb and release the heat they acquire.
So to answer your question, the heating of the oceans is a slow process. The atmosphere is warmed mostly by contact with the slowly warming oceans as the oceans absorb the ever increasing downward radiation due to increasing greenhouse gases such as CO2, CH4 and H2O. Big coupled oceanic/atmospheric cycles such as ENSO alternately release more and then less ocean heat content to the atmosphere. The current El Nino is one such event, releasing vast amounts of heat energy to the atmosphere resulting in near record globally averaged temperatures. Things will cool back down a bit when the next La Nina occurs. The gradual increase in globally averaged temps is measured in tenths of one degree Celsius per decade and that will continue to be the case, although likely at an increasing rate.
So the deniers were right all along—the models are flawed. Maybe not quite the way they thought, but hey, when they’re right about something you gotta give them credit.
This is one more positive feedback loop. Honestly, I don’t know why you are sticking with the old 450ppm number as a goal. The momentum in the climate-ocean system for 387 will take temps up 2.4 C above baseline according to experts who haven’t included all the feedbacks that have been discovered recently. This feedback isn’t that big yet, but it’s one of many that haven’t been accounted for.
Joe,
Have you seen the comment from Dr. Steven Easterbrook at RC about how scientists think and how peer-review works? I highly recommend that you make this a thread on Climate Progress.
Steven allowed me to repost his comment on my blog and Kate at ClimateSight has done the same. We should shout this from the rooftops, IMO.
Sorry for the OT.
Russel,
Thank you so much for the reply! I can’t tell you how much relief that gives me. Don’t get me wrong, I realize we are in a whole HEAP of trouble in the long run unless we take DRASTIC action (and honestly as long as Republicans (GW deniers) play even a small role in government, such action isn’t likely….)
I guess I was putting the pieces together without knowing the whole story. Considering I have a son that’s about to be born in the next month, your reply gives me more relief than you can imagine (again, not to say that I’m not worried…just that we won’t be staring TEOTWAWKI down the nose any time soon)
Thanks so much again.
-Asterisk
Asterisk, #15: Your statements remind me of the man about to step off the edge of a large building with a smile on his face stating, “The fall never hurt anyone, the view is great!” True enough. It is just that sudden stop at the end!
How close is that last step? IMO, humanity may well have it’s foot firmly positioned over the precipice and shifting our center of mass as we speak. Which direction is still a guess.
Oh, forgot to mention, the wind is on our back.
On the bright side, there is lots of folks like Joe , most of the commentators on this site, and millions more that are trying desperately to get a rope around humanities wast.
Please join us, friends and family are welcome.
Clearcut, “managed” forests have much hotter microclimates than adjacent rare old growth, propelling soil carbon release. We need to stop consuming so much wood.
This means removing timber industry subsidies and replacing them with carbon taxes. Events will force this eventually anyway.
Richard Pauli, you asked:
“Where are the short term projections? The real need is to plan for 5 and 10 years out. ”
I am a worried parent and constant observer of new results of field studies on permafrost, tundra, forest dieback, soil respiration and the next positive feedback study. When is it going to dawn on climate activists that our actions and rhetoric are far below the radar image of what is really happening to the global climate and how little time there is to prepare for the AGW Cat 6 storm coming at us?
This comment will be lost to the archives in about 24 hours so this is one opportunity to plead to any and all organizations, individuals (including scientists) to hear what Dr. Lovelock is telling the world and amplify his warning a hundred fold.
If we wait for that magic number of 67 AGW-believing US Senators to enact a climate treaty, we have lost our children’s future to a paper chase. Start now to scare opinion makers and lawmakers into a survival and preparedness mentality. If we have the likes of James Cameron, Alec Baldwin and other big names going onto You-tube and any other medium smart people can create and flood the internet and media with the TRUTH about our children’s future, perhaps we can step out of our COP uniforms and flood local governments with demands that focus on the impacts of the temperature increase we now have and what we will be experiencing 5, 10 and 20 years out.
For some believers, this is still a marvelous learning experience and chance to throw out outlandish mitigation ideas (ala Vinod and his investor friends); or geoengineering profiteers or total wind and solar advocates or reforestation campaigners (regardless of how the climate will become hotter and dryer in deforested regions such as the Amazon. Whether there is time, money, and cooperation to make any of those popular notions happen is not as important as authoring the “climate fix strategy”.
Folks, the front bumper is against the big oak tree and the rear bumper is traveling about 70 miles per hour and we are arguing for the Waxman-Markey-Kerry whatever that will maybe cut a bit of CO2 emissions in our lifetime.
WE don’t have to get violent to be heard but we must grab the attention of governments and the masses and not with high anxiety Congressional floor fights but with vivid images of what is happening now and how each of these small and noticeable feedbacks are about to converge on this planet as a climatic maelstrom.
I agree with some or most of you that this is just a rant. WE don’t really have the stomach to act on what we believe because we cannot accept the image of the future facing us and we are reluctant to freeze all the deer in our headlights. WE want to change the image of the future it and make it go away. It is going to get worse and people have to hear that from believers and Dr. Lovelock would be the first to say his projections are conservative.
Joe, this is not a most helpful comment but climate change is a time related crisis and we are about to run out of time to prepare. How, I don’t know but that is not the main topic of the day.
John McCormick
Lief,
Looking at the data objectively, there really is no question that we are headed for the end of civilization as we know it. Sounds dramatic to put it that way, but frankly if crops won’t grow where they are supposed to because of drought, or flood, or even too much heat, food won’t grow. Period end of story, GAME OVER.
If the oceans become to acidic for plankton or other shell based creatures to exist, the entire oceanic food chain collapses. Game over.
If sea level rises suddenly because of the collapse of some chunk of ice sheet, waters rise around the coasts, property values plummet, people panic (remember that most people have not a CLUE about the true severity of the problem)….possible game over.
There are at least a dozen other scenarios that would be game over for civilization.
However, the question is WHEN, in a worst case scenario, could any of the above take place?
After reading a TON of material, I (hopefully wrongfully), came to the conclusion that it could be this year (I came to that conclusion after reading the March 2010 study about methane release in the arctic).
The difference between facing TEOTWAWKI this year or 20 years from now is HUGE because at least we would have 20 more years to get our act together and start reversing some of this nonsense.
I agree with your comments about humanity standing on the edge of a cliff with the wind on our back…no question about it. I suppose I am really asking “how fast is the wind blowing and how fast are we walking?”
Does this prove the feedback?
http://tinyurl.com/yb9skmx
Indiana Threatened By Giant Poop Bubbles, For Realsies
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/26/indiana-threatened-by-gia_n_514960.html
in 2006, “small bubbles began poking up” in those lagoons. Those bubbles are now “the size of small houses.” Those bubbles “are big enough to be seen in satellite photos.” Those bubbles are something Etter really, really, really wants her readers to take pretty deadly seriously!
Last year, a hog farmer in Hayfield, Minn., was launched 40 feet into the air in an explosion caused by methane gas from a manure pit on his farm. He sustained burns and singed hair.
From the Finnish paper…
“The present climate models underestimate the increase of carbon dioxide emissions from soil in a warmer climate. Thereby they also underestimate the accelerating impact of the largest carbon storage in forests on the climate change.”
Indeed, all the feedback processes and effects have, and are continuing to be, severely underestimated! There is a GHG “spike” that _will_ occur within the next decade, perhaps the next 3-5 yrs, that is almost certain to send CO2-equivalent concentration to well over 450ppm.
However, what I don’t see being discussed anywhere is the _fact_ that weather patterns, driven as always by climate, have _already_ shifted severely in many parts of the world. Dramatic climate change isn’t something that is “going to happen,” it _is_ happening now. Alas, even that doesn’t begin to hint at the changes to come in the very near future. Already there are millions of “climate refugees” around the world and those pressures are only going to increase. Unfortunately, looking at the droughts/floods/desertification taking place in China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, one has to wonder just how near they are to the “breaking point.” Not to be neglected is the fact that none of those countries are even “cordial” to any of the others and 3 of them _already_ possess nuclear weapons.
It should also be noted that “climate change” is _not_ “the” problem but a symptom of a much larger one. Goodbye! Have a nice day.
If this article states that we will be in very deep trouble if we go over a ppm of 450 CO2e, than I have a paper that will not help your piece of mind.
Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends.
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1882/3863.full
This one basically states that 450 ppmv CO2e is not feasible, 550 almost impossible and 650 already a very hard challenge.
[JR: It says 450 is "increasingly unlikely." No question. Quite feasible, though.]
It has been a while since I brewed beer, but as I recall, when the temperature was higher there was more CO2 output from the yeast fermentation. Not at all surprising that CO2 output from soils would rise with temperature.
I do hope this gets rolled into all the climate models.
Cheers !
Collin, on what are you basing your assertion that Co2 will spike to 450 in the next few years?