Nature’s carbon cycle still in good working order, researchers find

The carbon cycle [credit: laurencenet.net]

Carbon cycle alarm has so far failed to materialise, this research finds.
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Researchers have constructed a new time series for global carbon emissions from deforestation, reports Phys.org.

The series is the missing link in terms of the improved understanding of the global carbon cycle, and it implies that the natural uptake of CO2 by the land and oceans is more efficient than previously assumed.

The study shows that carbon emissions from deforestation between the 1960s and 1980s were lower than previous studies had assumed.

By combining the time series with other datasets, the scientists show that the uptake of CO2 by nature is so far influenced less by climate change than was thought in the past.

The new study was conducted by scientists from Deltares, VU University Amsterdam, Woodwell Climate Research Center, Columbia University, and Wageningen University and Research and published 16 March in the scientific journal Nature.

Time series reconstruction

To estimate the carbon emissions in the principal deforestation areas in South America and Indonesia, the scientists used records of visibility data in a surprising way.

If there are large numbers of forest fires, visibility declines due to levels of smoke and these visibility data are therefore a measure of the number of forest fires linked to deforestation in these areas.
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Implications

According to Guido van der Werf, a professor at the VU University of Amsterdam specializing in the global carbon cycle who set up the study, it is difficult for the time being to draw firm conclusions from this paper about future climate change.

“What we can mainly prove is that the worst nightmare scenarios of an impaired carbon sink have not yet materialized and that the news is not quite as bad. But we cannot say that we now have more time to achieve the climate targets. That is primarily because the good news is mainly based on new insights relating to the period of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Looking at the last few decades, it might be that the improvement in efficiency has stalled.”

Full report here.