Land, Ocean Carbon Sinks Are Weakening, Making Climate Action More Urgent

We are destroying nature’s ability to help us stave off catastrophic climate change. That’s the bombshell conclusion of an under-reported 2014 study, “The declining uptake rate of atmospheric CO2 by land and ocean sinks.”

Based on actual observations and measurements, the world’s top carbon-cycle experts have determined that the land and ocean are becoming steadily less effective at removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This makes it more urgent for us to start cutting carbon pollution ASAP, since it will become progressively harder and harder for us to do so effectively in the coming decades.

The ocean and the land (including vegetation and soils) are carbon “sinks” that currently absorb more than half of all human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. Scientists have long been concerned that these sinks will become increasingly ineffective at absorbing CO2 — because of global warming itself. That would mean a greater and greater fraction of human-caused carbon pollution would stay in the air, which would speed up climate change, causing even more CO2 to stay in the air — an amplifying feedback. And that in turn means humanity will have to work harder and harder in the future to keep CO2 and methane from accumulating in the air.

For instance, the defrosting permafrost and the resultant release of carbon dioxide and methane (CH4) turns part of the land sink into a source of airborne greenhouse gases.

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