A dramatic decline in the ability of the Earth to soak up man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, and a corresponding acceleration in the rate of increase of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, have been detected for the first time by scientists. The discovery that more carbon dioxide from human activities is lingering in the air rather being absorbed by the world’s forests and oceans has alarmed scientists who believe that it signals a potentially dangerous turn of events for the global climate. They fear that a much-anticipated ‘feedback’ in the global climate – when increases in carbon dioxide in the air trigger further increases in atmospheric concentrations of the gas – has already begun to occur decades before many predicted. ‘We always said that these feedbacks would happen in the future, but what this study shows is that these feedbacks are happening right now,’ said Josep Canadell, executive director of the Global Climate Project in Canberra, and the lead author of the study. About half of the carbon dioxide emissions resulting from human activities are absorbed by natural ‘sinks’ on land and the oceans but the new study shows that the efficiency of these sinks has […]