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Wednesday, October 16th, 2024

Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing?

Author:     Patrick Greenfield
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Mon 14 Oct 2024 | 03.00 EDT
 Link: Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing?
Stephan:  

Every scientific paper about climate change that I see is screaming with alarm. Most are too technical for SR, so I search for general audience versions like this report from The Guardian because I want you, my readers, to fully understand that science is in a panic of concern. Yet you see and hear almost nothing about these alarms in corporate media. Earth’s matrix of life is under a threat most don’t even seem to understand and yet every living being, from bacteria to humans, is going to be disastrously affected.

Phytoplankton in the Barents Sea. Melting sea ice exposes algae-eating zooplankton to more sunlight, which could cut the amount of carbon stored on the seabed. Credit: Nasa / Alamy

It begins each day at nightfall. As the light disappears, billions of zooplankton, crustaceans and other marine organisms rise to the ocean surface to feed on microscopic algae, returning to the depths at sunrise. The waste from this frenzy – Earth’s largest migration of creatures – sinks to the ocean floor, removing millions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere each year.

This activity is one of thousands of natural processes that regulate the Earth’s climate. Together, the planet’s oceans, forests, soils and other natural carbon sinks absorb about half of all human emissions.

The sudden collapse of carbon sinks was not factored into climate models – and could rapidly accelerate global heating

It begins each day at nightfall. As the light disappears, billions of zooplankton, crustaceans and other marine organisms rise to the ocean surface to feed on microscopic algae, returning to the depths at sunrise. The waste from this frenzy – […]

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