on-the-border-of-the-point-of-no-return-infopostIf emissions from human activity continue unremitting, the global warming can run amok. An international team of researchers has warned that an increase of 1ºC in the Earth’s average temperature could trigger the release of an additional 55 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. In a report published in the journal Nature, the research team notes that an increase of one degree would cause soil-dwelling organisms to become more active, causing new carbon emissions into the atmosphere, in a cycle that is fed back.

Previous estimates did not account for carbon from soil biomass, and the report suggests that the largest amount of carbon stored on earth is in the soil. Team leader, scientist Thomas Crowther, explains that carbon is trapped in soil because material plant takes it from the atmosphere in photosynthesis. Plant roots, microbes, and soil-dwelling animals use carbon for their growth and activity. In the cold areas of the planet, carbon remains in the soil for a long time, since the activity of the biomass is limited, but an increase in temperature would increase the activity, and with it the respiration of an enormous biomass and the release of carbon into the atmosphere.

Studies and findings like this one only reinforce the imperative to meet the objectives set out in the Paris Agreement.