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For peat's sake: A point of no return as alarming as the tundra feedback

Posted on October 13, 2008

A new study in Nature Geoscience (subs. req'd, abstract below) projects that a warming of 4 C causes a 40% loss of soil organic carbon from the shallow peat and 86% from the deep peat of Northern peatlands. And that amplifying carbon cycle feedback is dangerous for three reasons: The northern peatlands are believed to store some 320 (+/- 140) billion metric tons of carbon, roughly half of what the atmosphere contains.Peatlands tend to emit much of their carbon in the form of methane, which is more than 20 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.A warming of 4 C this cent...

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carbon , carbon cycle , carbon dioxide , emissions , global warming , greenhouse gas , study