During the fourth decade of continuous warming, something new happened. The chemically stable carbon - the material bound tightly to minerals, wrapped in resistant molecular structures, and long assumed to be off-limits to microbial appetite - began to degrade.
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The scale of the potential contribution is not trivial. Global soils hold an estimated 1,500 to 2,400 gigatons of carbon in the top two meters, roughly two to three times the amount in the atmosphere. A single-digit percentage loss over decades would rival cumulative fossil fuel emissions from a major economy.
this experiment is stuff we’ve known in detail for at least 40+ years. the only things that really hold carbon humus long term is cold and/or anerobic conditions.
We should definitely make more hummus
does this effectively mean that carbon concentration in the atmosphere can create a reinforcement loop after a certain temperature tipping point
Indeed. There are a lot of other feedback loops there. Mostly, positive ones.
People forget is that the planetary system Earth has own strong evolutionary dynamics, as evidenced in the paleoclimatic records.
Humanity’s disturbance managed to move the system outside of the Holocene climatic regime, which might be anomalously benign for the human civilisation.
When, or even if the planetary system is coming back is unknown at this point. Potentially, we’ve really screwed the pooch this time.
I, for one, welcome our new Venus overwolrd.
