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Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide

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Research
Topics:
carbon dioxide
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April 20, 2017
A discovery by a NOAA scientist has led to a new way of estimating
how much carbon dioxide is taken up by plant communities, such as the
Amazon rainforest.
A discovery by a NOAA scientist has led to a new way of estimating
how much carbon dioxide is taken up by plant communities, such as the
Amazon rainforest. (NOAA)
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A trace gas present in the atmosphere in miniscule amounts is helping
scientists answer one of the biggest questions out there: Has plant
growth increased alongside rising levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere?

It turns out the answer is Yes - in a big way. A new study published
in the April 6 edition of the journal Nature concludes that as
emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels have increased
since the start of the 20th century, plants around the world are
utilizing 30 percent more carbon dioxide (CO[2]), spurring plant
growth.

In 2007, NOAA scientist Stephen Montzka wrote a pivotal paper that
identified the trace gas, carbonyl sulfide, as a key to estimating
how much CO[2]  plants are taking in as they grow.

Recently, Montzka was part of a team of scientists led by Elliot
Campbell of University of California, Merced, that reviewed the
54,000-year record for atmospheric carbonyl sulfide from measurements
of air trapped in the snowpack at the South Pole. "When we did, we
discovered a massive, changing signal from the biosphere," he says.
 

Why carbonyl sulfide?

Plants take up CO[2] when they photosynthesize, but they release it
when they respire, decay or are burned. That means that the removal
rate of CO[2] by plants can't be directly estimated on global scales
from measurements of CO[2] alone.

But plants need other nutrients, including sulfur - and once they
grab it, they don't give it back. Carbonyl sulfide - or COS, a
molecule comprised of a carbon atom, a sulfur atom and an oxygen atom
- is found in tiny amounts (parts per trillion) in the atmosphere.
Ongoing NOAA sampling and analysis of air trapped in Antarctic ice
cores has enabled scientists to estimate changes in plant consumption
of carbonyl sulfide during the past 100 years and then calculate how
much CO[2] plants are absorbing.

The study provides the first truly global estimate of the amount of
CO[2] that plants "fix" into their tissues like leaves in response to
increasing concentrations of the gas over the past century. Montzka
says that tracking COS will help scientists monitor how much carbon
land plants are removing from the atmosphere as CO[2] levels
increase.

"These results will help us better predict the biosphere's response
to continued fossil fuel emissions - and ultimately improve our
predictions of climate change."

Read more about this study in the journal Nature. offsite link

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Last updated April 20, 2017
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