Study quantifies global soil carbon loss due to warming

UCI biologists Steven Allison and Kathleen Treseder are part of a Yale-led global study appearing in Nature that says global warming will drive the loss of at least 55 trillion kilograms of carbon from the Earth’s soil by midcentury, or about 17 percent more than the projected emissions due to human-related activities during that period. This would be roughly the […]

Concrete jungle functions as carbon sink, UCI and other researchers find

Cement-based materials eventually reabsorb much of the CO2 released during creation

In ocean carbon recycling, size matters

The journal Nature Geoscience published a study today from UCI Earth system scientists on the size-reactivity continuum in the ocean carbon cycle. Detrital (not living) organic matter is a very large reservoir of carbon stored in the world’s oceans; it’s roughly equal in size to the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. Marine organic matter spans […]

Soil will absorb less atmospheric carbon than expected this century, UCI-led study finds

Improved Earth system models paint bleak climate change picture

Frugal phytoplankton play role in global carbon cycle

Adam Martiny, UCI associate professor of Earth system science, and study co-author Eric D. Galbraith of McGill University show that frugal phytoplankton may obtain more CO2 in warm, nutrient-depleted parts of the ocean than previously thought. By doing so, they can have a significant impact on marine ecosystems and the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Warmer temps may affect how soil stores carbon

A research team that included Steven Allison, associate professor of ecology & evolutionary biology in the Francisco J. Ayala School of Biological Sciences, has found that warmer temperatures shorten the lifespan of soil microbes, and this may affect how soil stores carbon.

Existing power plants will spew 300 billion more tons of carbon dioxide during use

Existing power plants around the world will pump out more than 300 billion tons of carbon dioxide over their expected lifetimes, significantly adding to atmospheric levels of the climate-warming gas, according to UC Irvine and Princeton University scientists.

Little black carbon reaches ocean floor, study finds

Just a fraction of the carbon that finds its way into Earth’s oceans–the black soot and charcoal residue of fires–stays there for thousands of years. A first-of-its-kind analysis by UC Irvine, Rice University and the University of Southern California also revealed how some black carbon breaks away and hitches a ride to the ocean floor on passing particles.

China is outsourcing carbon within its own borders, UCI and others find

Just as the U.S. outsources dangerous carbon dioxide emissions to China, rich coastal provinces in that country are outsourcing emissions to
poorer provinces in the interior, according to UC Irvine and other climate researchers.

Ocean plankton sponge up nearly twice the carbon currently assumed

Irvine, Calif. – Models of carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans need to be revised, according to new work by UC Irvine and other scientists published online Sunday in Nature Geoscience. Trillions of plankton near the surface of warm waters are far more carbon-rich than has long been thought, they found. Global marine temperature fluctuations […]