Earth's natural carbon sinks, like the tropical forest sink pictured, are not working as well as they should be. Normally, the carbon sinks remove large amounts of atmospheric CO2 created by humans. (Photo by H-D Viktor Boehm)
The amount of the main greenhouse gas is
increasing faster than anyone predicted. Rebecca
Williams reports on a surprising new study:
Transcript
The amount of the main greenhouse gas is
increasing faster than anyone predicted. Rebecca
Williams reports on a surprising new study:
Since the year 2000, carbon dioxide levels have risen 35 percent faster
than expected.
Corinne Le Quere is an author of the study in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. She says it’s partly because people are
burning more fossil fuels than expected. And the Earth’s natural
carbon sinks are not working as well as they should be. Forests and
oceans naturally soak up CO2 from the atmosphere:
“They now absorb a smaller fraction of the emissions and we think that they
are weakening in response to climate change itself.”
For example, CO2 is stored in the deeper waters of the ocean. But more
intense winds caused by climate change have stirred up the gas. That
weakens the oceans’ ability to absorb man-made CO2.
The study finds it’s going to be harder to control global warming than
previously thought.
For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.