Stopping climate change, if at all possible, will be harder than previously thought. Some of the hopes of science Plants that release oxygen by converting CO2 and water into carbohydrates are among the main carbon sinks on the planet.. The idea the scientists used was that as the level of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the rates of photosynthesis will increase worldwide, which will slow down global warming. That was the case in the last century, but since 2000 these rates have slowed, because the atmosphere has become drier. And the less water, the less photosynthesis and the more CO2 in the environment.
A team of Earth scientists from the Grassland Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, in collaboration with colleagues from various institutions in the United States, have just found evidence that: The increase in photosynthesis rates worldwide caused by increased carbon dioxide has slowed significantly.
In their study, published in the journal Science, the group of researchers measured changes in global photosynthesis rates in recent years. They did not expect the lousy results achieved.
Previous research has shown that As CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased over the past century, plants have taken advantage of the increased CO2 by accelerating photosynthesis and extracting more carbon from the atmosphere..
net effect stop global warming. until the year 2000. New research has shown that So far this century, increases in atmospheric CO2 have slowed the rate of increase in global photosynthesis as the atmosphere also becomes drier..
Everything changed in 2000
To learn more about the global rate of photosynthesis, the researchers examined data collected by ground monitors around the world between 1982 and 2016. These monitors collect environmental statistics such as the amount of CO2 and water in the air.
The team also collected satellite images of the vegetation-covered areas. Then they combined the images with multiple machine learning applications to find hard-to-see changes, such as leaf colors. photosynthesis rates.
The team then built models using the data to graphically represent changes in global photosynthesis rates from 2000 to the present. Finally, they used models to predict future changes.
The researchers found that the results of previous studies were correct: Global rates of photosynthesis have increased as CO2 levels have risen over the past century..
However From 2000 onwards, everything changed: the increase in photosynthesis rates began to slow down. The worst thing is that scientists think it is “possible” that these rates will increase completely in the near futureAs the world gets hotter and drier.
The main result global warming will accelerate If it does not drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it puts the continuity of life on the planet in serious jeopardy. But there’s more: the app nature-based solutions (SBN) To fulfill the commitments made in the Paris Agreement.
17% more CO2 in the atmosphere
A study whose results were published in the journal ‘Nature’ two years ago revealed that… global photosynthesis increased 12% between 1982 and 2020. And at the same time, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere increased by 17%.
This increase in photosynthesis translated into 14 petagrams of additional carbon removed from the atmosphere by plants each year; that’s roughly equivalent to the carbon emitted worldwide from burning fossil fuels in 2020 alone.
However, not all of the carbon removed from the atmosphere through photosynthesis is stored in ecosystems as it is then released into the atmosphere through respiration. And in any case, this study has already warned This massive increase in photosynthesis was far from eliminating the enormous amounts of CO2 emitted by humans. to the atmosphere.
Even so, these scientists were optimistic: the increase in photosynthesis “does not stop climate change, but helps us stop it,” said Trevor Keenan, lead author of the study at the time.
This appreciation collapsed with the new study, which shows The increase in global photosynthesis is much less than the increase in emissions.and this is getting less and less as the atmosphere dries up.
Because CO2 remains in the atmosphere for decades longer than other greenhouse gases that cause global warming, efforts to reduce it are critical to mitigating climate change.
Plants—through photosynthesis—and soil currently sequester about a third of the CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere every decade from the burning of fossil fuels.. And less and less.
Reference report: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf5041
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