Land ecosystems are becoming less efficient at absorbing CO2

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-12/nsfc-lea121820.php

 

News Release 18-Dec-2020
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

 

Land ecosystems currently play a key role in mitigating climate change. The more carbon dioxide (CO2) plants and trees absorb during photosynthesis, the process they use to make food, the less CO2 remains trapped in the atmosphere where it can cause temperatures to rise. But scientists have identified an unsettling trend - as levels of CO2 in the atmosphere increase, 86 percent of land ecosystems globally are becoming progressively less efficient at absorbing it.


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In effect, climate change is weakening plants' ability to mitigate further climate change over large areas of the planet.

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"What this means is that to avoid 1.5 or 2°C warming and the associated climate impacts, we need to adjust the remaining carbon budget to account for the weakening of the plant CO2 Fertilization Effect," he said. "And because of this weakening, land ecosystems will not be as reliable for climate mitigation in the coming decades."