Nature's carbon 'sink' smaller than expected

[rodeodance]

Source: csm



Nature's carbon 'sink' smaller than expected

By Peter N. Spotts, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Thu May 3, 4:00 AM ET

When it comes to global warming, nature's help is limited.

While the continents and oceans have absorbed much of the carbon dioxide that humanity has pumped into the atmosphere so far, they won't be able to keep up with the expected rise in greenhouse-gas emissions over the next several decades. Indeed, some recent studies suggest that current scientific estimates about natural absorption are too optimistic: Earth's climate by century's end could be on average up to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F.) hotter than current "business as usual" projections suggest.

What this implies is that policy and technological measures to cope with climate change will become even more important. This week, scientists and government negotiators are wrestling over those measures in a key international meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. They will lay out their recommendations in a summary statement slated for release Friday.

"We've been getting a free ride from forests and oceans," says Robert Jackson, a Duke University ecologist who heads the southeastern division of the US
Department of Energy's National Institute for Climate Change Research. But "I'm not confident – especially as our fossil-fuel emissions continue to grow – that we can rely on natural systems to bail us out of this."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070503/ts_csm/asmallsink;_ylt=An9qvIK4k1sFhGh9yrRBZ9rMWM0F

[alfredo]

1. It's going to be a test to see if the humans can survive.

In the end it doesn't matter. We are no more important than a banana slug, we just think we are.

[krkaufman]

2. I consider myself pretty damn important to the overall survival ...

... of me, though.

[Javaman]

3. It's always about you, isn't it? LOL

:rofl:

[alfredo]

4. I know I will not get out of it alive, but I am going to stick around

well beyond the point of being a pain in the ass to somebody.