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Illustration of the forest as the largest natural carbon sequestration site |
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Experts continue to focus on the development of new technologies to eliminate harmful greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. This is the right step because according to a new study of the journal Naturefactories may lose their ability to absorb carbon dioxide emissions in the future.
Yes, with the speed at which humans produce carbon dioxide in a variety of activities, the earth's vegetation may not be able to store carbon dioxide in the future.
Even though plants need carbon dioxide to grow, there is always a limit to the amount of gas absorbed, also called CO2.
Global carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018. In the United States alone, they have risen by about 3.4%. This trend makes scientists, government officials and industry leaders more concerned than ever for the future of the Earth.
As Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres said at the opening of the 24th Annual Climate Conference on December 3, 2018, "we are facing a big problem with climate change. ".
Every year, humans release more than 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. At present, the marine and terrestrial biosphere (forests, savannas and others) absorbs about 50% of these emissions.
This explains why carbon storage in the forest can increase. In the oceans, excess CO2 creates acidic conditions that lead to results such as coral bleaching. On land, there are still positive effects, such as the process of photosynthesis that uses gas with sunlight to make food.
However, a group of researchers at Columbia University said that in the near future, the Earth's vegetation could lose its ability to absorb carbon dioxide emissions. This will lead to an increase in global warming and global warming.
The ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide emissions depends on changes in the water cycle, such as droughts and floods. With the help of different climate models, researchers evaluated the impact of drought or flood periods on plants.
They studied in particular the impact of soil moisture on the productivity of clean biombad by badyzing the long-term trends of soil drying and the effects of extreme events at short term, such as floods and droughts on the ground.
The main author of the study, a doctoral student Julia Green found, in a scenario like the one of today, that when humans do not usually strive to reduce the emissions produced, the productivity of world crops – the capacity to store carbon – will increase until about 2060, then decline sharply.
When that happens, a lot of the emissions we produce are no longer offset by the capacity of the plants, and climate change is going to happen faster than expected.
All this comes down to the availability of water. As the climate warms, most of the Earth's land is drying up gradually.
A number of regions of the world, including those with semi-arid land features such as the Sahelian zone in Africa and northern Australia, are expected to receive more heat waves and drought.
When plants are destroyed by drought, much of the carbon that they collect is released into the atmosphere. In addition, warmer, drier weather can accelerate any changes in the ecosystem. Forests can turn into grbadlands, which do not store a lot of carbon.
"Basically, there was no drought and heat waves, if there was no long-term drying for the next century, the continents would then be in able to store carbon almost twice as much as they do now, "said Pierre Gentine, principal investigator.
"Is a big problem, if soil moisture continues to reduce the productivity of GNP at the current rate, and the rate of carbon sequestration on land has begun to decline in the middle of this century – as we have done. found in the model that they developed – we could witness a sharp increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and an increase, depending on the effects of global warming and climate change ", was -he adds.
Thus, plants could soon lose their ability to absorb carbon dioxide emissions of human origin. A fact that will eventually accelerate global warming.
"We all really need to act immediately to avoid the greater consequences of climate change," concluded Gentine.
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