Latest Carbon cycle Stories

Researchers from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) reported new data that shows a higher than usual average increase in carbon dioxide levels over the last 30 years.The recently released report from NOAA scientists is an annual update to the agency's greenhouse gas index, which tracks data from 60 regions around the world. Concentrations may have increased by as much as 0.5% from 2006 to 2007.CO2 levels jumped by 2.4 parts per...

An outbreak of pine beetles is to blame for the destruction of almost 33 million acres of lodgepole pines in British Columbia, resulting in a massive release of carbon equal to five years of emissions from the entire system of Canadian transport.The findings come from Werner Kurz, a researcher at the Canadian Forest Service. Kurz said he estimates that 990 megatons of carbon dioxide could be released over 21 years of destruction by the pine beetle."When trees are killed, they no longer...

Using data from the SCIAMACHY instrument aboard ESA's Envisat environmental satellite, scientists have for the first time detected regionally elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide "“ the most important greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming "“ originating from manmade emissions. More than 30 billion tons of extra carbon dioxide (CO2) is released into the atmosphere annually by human activities, mainly through the burning of fossil fuels. According to the latest report by the...

High winds and big waves are part of the data -- and the challengeScientists will embark this week from Punta Arenas, Chile, on the tip of South America, to spend 42 days amid the high winds and waves of the Southern Ocean. Here they hope to make groundbreaking measurements to explain how huge fluxes of climate-affecting gases move between atmosphere and sea, and vice-versa.The cruise, which departs Feb. 28, should provide important information on how the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide moves...

WASHINGTON - More than 30 scientists will embark next week on a research mission to the Southern Ocean. Researchers will battle the elements to study how gases important to climate change move between the atmosphere and the ocean under high winds and seas. NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Science Foundation are sponsoring the Southern Ocean Gas Exchange Experiment, a six-week research expedition aboard the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown, departing...

EVANSTON, Ill. -- In the science world, in the media, and recently, in our daily lives, the debate continues over how carbon in the atmosphere is affecting global climate change. Studying just how carbon cycles throughout the Earth is an enormous challenge, but one Northwestern University professor is doing his part by studying one important segment -- rivers.Aaron Packman, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science,...

How Mars could have been warm and wet but limestone freeCAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Planetary scientists have puzzled for years over an apparent contradiction on Mars. Abundant evidence points to an early warm, wet climate on the red planet, but there's no sign of the widespread carbonate rocks, such as limestone, that should have formed in such a climate.Now, a detailed analysis in the Dec. 21 issue of Science by MIT's Maria T. Zuber and Itay Halevy and Daniel P. Schrag of Harvard University...

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) may have played a key role in the climate and geochemistry of early Mars, geoscientists at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggest in the Dec. 21 issue of the journal Science. Their hypothesis may resolve longstanding questions about evidence that the climate of the Red Planet was once much warmer than it is today.The Science paper's authors are Itay Halevy, a Ph.D. candidate in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences;...

Oxygen may have triggered burst of biodiversityCOLUMBUS , Ohio -- Ohio State University geologists and their colleagues have uncovered evidence of when Earth may have first supported an oxygen-rich atmosphere similar to the one we breathe today.The study suggests that upheavals in the earth's crust initiated a kind of reverse-greenhouse effect 500 million years ago that cooled the world's oceans, spawned giant plankton blooms, and sent a burst of oxygen into the atmosphere.That oxygen may...

WASHINGTON -- Just days after the Nobel prize was awarded for global warming work, an alarming new study finds that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected.Carbon dioxide emissions were 35 percent higher in 2006 than in 1990, a much faster growth rate than anticipated, researchers led by Josep G. Canadell, of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of...