• About
  • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground May 17, 2022
Rocky Mountain Glaciers ‘Past Tipping Point’, with Some Expected to Vanish by 2030 May 17, 2022
UK Activists Block Russian Oil Tanker From Docking in Essex May 17, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: Bid to Revive Doomed Nova Scotia LNG Project Collides with Germany’s Net-Zero Plans May 16, 2022
3,800 Residents Ordered to Evacuate after Flooding in Hay River, NWT May 16, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate News Network

Climate models may misjudge soils’ carbon emissions

August 28, 2015
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Alex Kirby

Climate models may misjudge soils’ carbon emissions

Climate models may have mistaken the role of both fungi and bacteria in decomposition

 

How soil organisms cope with decaying vegetation is much less certain than climate models suppose, researchers say, and carbon emission estimates may be wrong. 

LONDON, 29 August, 2015 – Some of the microscopic creatures which live in the soil are able to digest dead plants and trees, turning their contents into gas and minerals.

But researchers say their work show that our understanding of how organic material is decomposed is fundamentally wrong, calling into question some current climate models.

The researchers, from Lund University, Sweden, and the University of New Hampshire, USA, have published their study in the journal Ecological Monographs. They say it means that climate models which include micro-organisms in their estimates of future climate change must be reconsidered.

When plants or trees die, their leaves and branches fall to the ground and the organic matter which is absorbed by the soil is then decomposed, mainly by the activity of fungi and bacteria, which convert the dead materials into the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and mineral nutrients.

Until now, the Lund team says, scientists had thought that high-quality organic materials, such as leaves that are rich in soluble sugars, were mainly decomposed by bacteria, leaving the lower-quality matter, like cellulose and lignin, to be broken down mainly by fungi.

Expectations confounded

Previous research has suggested that organic material decomposed by fungi results in less CO2 and nutrient leakage compared with matter decomposed by bacteria.

This is important for the climate models in use today, as any change in the loss of CO2 and mineral nitrogen would alter the soil’s contribution to greenhouse gases and eutrophication, the process in which the release of excessive chemical pollution causes algal blooms in watercourses.

The researchers have now examined the relative significance of fungal and bacterial decomposition over a 23-year period. “In contrast with expectations, there was no evidence that high-quality organic material was mainly broken down by bacteria. In fact, the data strongly suggested the contrary”, says Johannes Rousk, researcher in microbial ecology at Lund.

“There was also no evidence to suggest that organic material broken down by fungi reduced the leakage of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, or the leakage of nutrients. Once again, the results tended to suggest the contrary”, he says.

He and his co-author, Serita D Frey, say the results could have consequences not only for climate models, but also for current policies on land use intended to encourage fungi, which they think may be based on flawed assumptions about the role of fungi in reducing environmental damage.

New models

But they cannot say precisely what the significance of their findings may prove to be for greenhouse gases. Dr Rousk told the Climate News Network: “Current models for carbon and nutrient turnover used by the IPCC, for example, and other organisations offering advice to governments do not yet explicitly incorporate microbial communities.

“A new generation of models is under development that have begun to do this. These will be affected by our results, which challenge current beliefs held in soil microbial ecology.

“So our results will not directly affect current models or their predictions, but the development of next generation models. It is probably not possible to conclude whether the models in use today have led to over-estimates of releases, or the opposite.

“By revising the interpretation of fungal and bacterial roles in decomposition, and their potential for carbon and nutrient release from soils, our results will hopefully reduce the ‘noise’ in the models and increase the precision of predictions.”

Decomposition and other soil processes are estimated to account for nearly 30% of all naturally-produced CO2 emissions. – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Smoke from wildfires kills thousands annually
Climate News Network

Smoke from wildfires kills thousands annually

September 24, 2021
62
Warming seas cut marine mammals’ survival chances
Climate News Network

Warming seas cut marine mammals’ survival chances

September 13, 2021
37
Earth’s future ‘hinges on UN Glasgow climate talks’
Climate News Network

Earth’s future ‘hinges on UN Glasgow climate talks’

September 10, 2021
26

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

Mounting Drought Risk Confronts London, Other World Cities

May 19, 2022
127
85,000-Hectare Fort Mac Wildfire Expected to Grow for Days

Six Traumatic Years After ‘The Beast’, Fort McMurray Remains Loyal to Big Oil

May 19, 2022
88
Ontario Contemplates ‘Ultra-Low Carbon’ Super-Agency

Ontario’s New Highway 413 Would Boost Emissions, Bake In ‘Auto-Dependent Sprawl’

May 19, 2022
64

BREAKING: 40% of Fossil Fuels Now Under Development Must Stay in the Ground

May 18, 2022
432
New Congressional Funding, Tax Credit Extensions Create ‘Enabling Conditions for Decarbonization’

ESG Becomes Latest ‘Acronym-Based Outrage’ in U.S. Republicans’ Culture Wars

May 19, 2022
63
‘New New Math’ Means Keeping Even More Fossils in the Ground: McKibben

U.S. Can’t Drill Its Way to Energy Security, Jenkins Warns

May 19, 2022
58

Recent Posts

Newfoundland Offers Suncor $175 Million to Restart Terra Nova Offshore Oilfield

Newfoundland Opens New Round of Offshore Oil Bidding

May 19, 2022
51
Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

Farmers’ Mental Health Strained by Climate-Driven Weather Extremes

May 19, 2022
51
Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

Calgary Company to Supply 180 MWh of Battery Capacity to Alberta Grid

May 19, 2022
56
Customer Demand Pushes U.S. Utilities Toward Solar, Energy Services

Power Sector Giants Promote ‘Fair, Just Transition to Net-Zero’

May 19, 2022
51
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan

Fossils Liable For Human Rights Violations in Landmark Ruling by Philippines Commission

May 19, 2022
34
Food and Fashion Sectors Lead Widening Spread of Climate Careers

Food and Fashion Sectors Lead Widening Spread of Climate Careers

May 19, 2022
29
Next Post
Shell swims against oil price tide

Shell swims against oil price tide

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications

2022 ONTARIO GENERAL ELECTION

KEEP UP WITH ONTARIO’S CLIMATE CHANGE ELECTION

election-checkmark
Get Election Notifications
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

2022 Ontario General Election

Keep up with Ontario’s Climate Change Election

election-checkmark
GET THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?