 "Forests, grasslands and oceans are absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere faster than ever but they are not keeping pace with rapidly rising emissions," says CSIRO scientist and co-chair of the Global Carbon Project, Dr Mike Raupach.
"While these natural CO2 sinks are a huge buffer against climate change, which would occur about twice as fast without them, they cannot be taken for granted."
Dr. Raupach and Swiss scientist, Dr Nicolas Gruber, co-chaired one of 43 sessions at the conference - Climate Change, Vulnerability of Carbon Sinks.
Dr. Raupach says concern about the vulnerability of carbon sinks is based on identifying several mechanisms that could cause the present stabilizing role of oceans and land to be weakened or even reversed.
"Such a change would have drastic consequences for the predicted magnitude or speed of climate change occurring and scientists will meet in Copenhagen to review and question the latest research from which advice can ultimately be provided to decision-makers."
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been growing about four times faster since 2000 than during the previous decade, despite efforts to curb emissions in a number of Kyoto Protocol signatory countries. Emissions from the combustion of fossil fuel and land use change reached 10 billion tones of carbon in 2007. Natural CO2 sinks are growing but slower than the atmospheric CO2 growth, which has been increasing at 2 ppm since 2000 or 33% faster than the previous 20 years.
Annual mean growth rate of atmospheric CO2 was 2.2 ppm per year in 2007 (up from 1.8 ppm in 2006), and above the 2.0 ppm average for the period 2000-2007. The average annual mean growth rate for the previous 20 years was about 1.5 ppm per year. This increase brought the atmospheric CO2 concentration to 383 ppm in 2007, 37% above the concentration at the start of the industrial revolution (about 280 ppm in 1750). The present concentration is the highest during the last 650,000 years and probably during the last 20 million years. [ppm = parts per million].
The Global Carbon Project (GCP) was established in 2001. The organisation seeks to quantify global carbon emissions and their causes.
The main object of the group has been to fully understand the carbon cycle. The project has brought together emissions experts and economists to tackle the problem of rising concentrations of greenhouse gases.
The Global Carbon Project works collaboratively with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the World Climate Programme, the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change and Diversitas, under the Earth Systems Science Partnership.Labels: carbon emissions, global carbon project |
