Climate Letter #1347

An important new study foresees vulnerability in a major carbon sink.  The terrestrial biosphere currently absorbs about 25% of the CO2 that human activity adds to the atmosphere each year.  A similar amount is absorbed by the oceans, and scientists have long wondered about the durability of both of these sinks, which are doing us a big favor in terms of holding back the greenhouse effect on climate systems.  This study raises doubts about the ability of land-based processes to keep bearing its share of that burden, in the absence of which the atmospheric CO2 level would start rising at a faster rate than human emissions.  For credibility, the study has seven authors, all of whom are associated with top-level international institutions, and the publisher is a prestigious journal, Nature.

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–Carbon Brief has a somewhat more detailed account of the contents of the study:
–The study itself does not have open access, but I would encourage you to read the Abstract.  Here are the closing two sentences:  “Our results emphasize that the capacity of continents to act as a future carbon sink critically depends on the nonlinear response of carbon fluxes to soil moisture and on land–atmosphere interactions. This suggests that the increasing trend in carbon uptake rate may not be sustained past the middle of the century and could result in accelerated atmospheric CO2 growth.”
–Extra comment:  The size of this effect is still contingent upon the magnitude of efforts that are made to assuage the conditions that are needed to produce it.
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Scientific American has published an article giving eight major reasons for why climate change should be treated as a public health emergency as well as everything else.  The author has done so in a commendably succinct manner, yet quite thorough.
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Scientists see an example of an abrupt climate shift taking place in the Arctic as a tipping point is reached (BBC News).  The Barents Sea, which borders the Arctic Ocean and is part of the same climate system, shows signs of rapid transformation that would make it an extension of the Atlantic.  The effects beyond would be widespread and the changes probably irreversible, with both being subject to many unknowns.
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The UN has made an analysis of environmental protection laws passed since 1972, with disappointing results (Motherboard).  The failure of implementation and enforcement is a major reason behind the deterioration of today’s climate.  “There’s often an instinct to ‘fix the laws,’ and what we really need to do is focus on implementing the laws that we already have.”  One nation, Costa Rica, has handled these things in the correct manner, with significant results that prove the point.
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A day-long blog of weather reports from South Australia, as all kinds of records were broken (The Guardian).  (For simplicity, always remember that 40C=104F.  Then add 1.8 F for each extra degree of C, or 9 for every 5.)
Carl

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