'Compost effect' may cause global warming to reach crisis point in 2050

[Barrett808]

Changing climate: 'Compost effect' may cause global warming to reach crisis point in 2050
By Sarah Cassidy
Published: 01 September 2006

The world faces a catastrophic rise in global warming in 2050 unless urgent action is taken to cut human-induced carbon emissions, a leading academic warned yesterday.

Professor Peter Cox, of Exeter University, told the Royal Geographical Society annual conference that temperatures could rise 8C by 2100 because of a "compost effect" which could see carbon dioxide levels increase 50 per cent faster than previously estimated.

Currently, around one quarter of carbon emissions are absorbed by the soil and one quarter by the oceans. It had previously been assumed that these proportions would remain the same. But Professor Cox said that global warming is damaging the soil's ability to absorb carbon emissions.

He said this vicious circle would reach crisis point in 2050 when a key threshold would be passed. After this point the land would begin to release carbon into the atmosphere. He predicted that this "compost effect" would lead to carbon dioxide levels rising from the current 380 parts per million to more than 1,000 parts per million by 2100.

Professor Cox warned that the Amazonian rainforest would be lost unless urgent action was taken to keep carbon dioxide levels below 500 parts per million. Higher levels of CO2 would see rainfall move away from the Amazon basin causing its lush vegetation to die.

(more)

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1223131.ece

[gorbal]

1. I don't know if calling it the "Compost effect" is useful

Great article, but now you will have conservative idiots misreading the headlines and saying composting is the reason for global warming.

[w4rma]

4. Yeah, maybe "over-saturation effect" would be better.

In 2050 the ground will be fully saturated with CO2 and will no longer be absorbing anymore.

[pansypoo53219]

2. old news to me

my cousin, atmospheric chemist smarty-pants was studying this for his thesis. Dr. Dan said we are in deep shoopoo. yet he lives in Miami.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended n/t

[dipsydoodle]

5. Soya production isn't helping

Soya production is growing rapidly in the area as a crop that offers large profits for farmers and gives a sizable boost to Brazil's trade accounts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3024636.stm
That's an old link to the subject but you'll easily find much later ones like this : http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/forests.cfm?ucidparam=20060522093259.

The problem is this - it's the tree roots which retain the rainwater on the land. The moisture then evaporates and it rains again etc. Stripping the forest to grow soya, which is happening on a large scale, progressively reduces the water retaining ability of the land and the rains runs off into rivers and into the sea. Less rain then allows the the land to turn into savanna and goodby major contributor to the world's climatic system.

Root through the Environment section section sometime - there's loads of stuff in there on such subjects.

[Gman]

6. We are so fucking selfish and stupid

we elect people to office that call this a theory. When people around the world are gasping for breath, do you think they'll think we really should have done something about this when we had a chance? The thing is, people right now that are very small children, or even yet to be born people in the next 10-20 years will have the awful job of trying to fix something their parents and grandparents were too stupid and selfish to stop before it happened. Our kids and grandkids are going to have to deal with this. Not us. We'll be long gone. Some dead and gone for many years. And the Cheney's and Bush's of the world won't be able to take a single solitary dime of their wealth that they made by allowing this to happen with them.

Use it up, spoil it, make it unhabitable and leave it to our kids. Real nice legacy.

[lvx35]

7. 8C...isn't that 15 'merican degrees?

So that 130 degree heat wave in CA would be a 145 degree heat wave. Wouldn't that kill pretty much all life? And it would be 115 degree summers up where I live near the Canadian border (given the new 100 degree days this year) Great.

[Porcupine]

8. Bog effect would possibly be more accurate

One of the biggest problems will be the melting of the permafrost regions of North America and Asia. Huge areas that are now frozen below 12 inches in the summer will thaw and turn into year round bogs. Bacteria will start to work on millenias worth of wet biomatter turning much of it into methane. The methane then accelerates global warming.