Posted on 07/26/2023 2:29:41 PM PDT by dennisw
Focus areas: Research Topics: carbon dioxide Share: Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share by email Print . Updated to correct a broken link. April 20, 2017
A trace gas present in the atmosphere in miniscule amounts is helping scientists answer one of the biggest questions out there: Has plant growth increased alongside rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
It turns out the answer is Yes – in a big way. A new study published in the April 6 edition of the journal Nature concludes that as emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels have increased since the start of the 20th century, plants around the world are utilizing 30 percent more carbon dioxide (CO2), spurring plant growth.
In 2007, NOAA scientist Stephen Montzka wrote a pivotal paper that identified the trace gas, carbonyl sulfide, as a key to estimating how much CO2 plants are taking in as they grow.
Recently, Montzka was part of a team of scientists led by Elliot Campbell of University of California, Merced, that reviewed the 54,000-year record for atmospheric carbonyl sulfide from measurements of air trapped in the snowpack at the South Pole. “When we did, we discovered a massive, changing signal from the biosphere,” he says.
Why carbonyl sulfide?
Plants take up CO2 when they photosynthesize, but they release it when they respire, decay or are burned. That means that the removal rate of CO2 by plants can’t be directly estimated on global scales from measurements of CO2 alone.
But plants need other nutrients, including sulfur – and once they grab it, they don’t give it back. Carbonyl sulfide – or COS, a molecule comprised of a carbon atom, a sulfur atom and an oxygen atom – is found in tiny amounts (parts per trillion) in the atmosphere. Ongoing NOAA sampling and analysis of air trapped in Antarctic ice cores has enabled scientists to estimate changes in plant consumption of carbonyl sulfide during the past 100 years and then calculate how much CO2 plants are absorbing.
The study provides the first truly global estimate of the amount of CO2 that plants “fix” into their tissues like leaves in response to increasing concentrations of the gas over the past century. Montzka says that tracking COS will help scientists monitor how much carbon land plants are removing from the atmosphere as CO2 levels increase.
“These results will help us better predict the biosphere’s response to continued fossil fuel emissions – and ultimately improve our predictions of climate change.”
Read more about this study in the journal Nature.
Well, for now, until this administration blocks the sun.
shocking
Thanks, Tell It Right!
Dear liberals:
Look up the word “homeostasis”.
CC
Photosynthesis might be another word liberals need to be familiar with. Ask them where oxygen come from. Is it from carbon dioxide or water? The don’t have a clue.
The world is just now starting to come out of thousands of years of CO2 drought.
And guess what...those plants feed today’s population which is a tad more than in 1900.
There must be a correlation between co2 and population. A greater population demands more co2.
Plant also tend to like warmer weather to as long as they have water. At least I think common food plants are like that.
50% to 70% of a plant’s non water mass becomes CO2 after it dies and decomposes. So you’re actually leading to global warming by having more plants, if you follow their logic.
It’s really ridiculous. Think of the billions of trees, weeds, algae, insects that will all eventually convert into CO2 eventually. This is a lot more CO2 than our cars put into the air.
Any one with any plant science background knows the more c02, the more plant growth.
In fact they are two pathways of photosynthesis. One is a higher energy requirement to capture c02 under low concentrations. The more efficient one is used in high c02 concentrations.
OH NO, We will be awash in dihodrogen monoxide.
Plants also release oxygen into the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Oxygen is good.
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