Research Shows Feedback Loop Accelerating Climate Change

One of the oldest climate change experiments has led to a troubling conclusion

Chris Mooney, October 5, 2017 (Washington Post)

“…[C]limate change doubters and skeptics may be right that computer simulations and data models don’t tell the whole story. A peer-reviewed 26-year record of observational data in Long-term pattern and magnitude of soil carbon feedback to the climate system in a warming world] reinforces fears about the possibility of a climate change “feedback” involving the planet’s soils, one that could pile on top of and substantially worsen the ongoing warming trend triggered by the burning of fossil fuels…Starting in 1991, a team of researchers have been studying the same 18 plots of forest soil in the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts. Six of the plots are entirely undisturbed, representing the natural state of the forest floor; six are artificially heated through underground cables to 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above the normal temperature; and six are ‘disturbed,’ meaning that they contain heating cables, but the cables are not actually powered, so the temperature is not altered…[The latest update of the findings showed] that 17 percent of the carbon has now been lost from the upper layer of soil of the heated plots over the period of the study. Extrapolating to the scale of the planet, the researchers suggest, that could be a big deal…” click here for more

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