New research shows plants absorb 31% more CO2 than previously estimated, raising the global GPP to 157 petagrams per year. Using carbonyl sulfide as a proxy for photosynthesis, this study highlights tropical rainforests’ critical role as carbon sinks and stresses the importance of accurate photosynthesis modeling for climate predictions.
A new assessment by scientists reveals that plants worldwide are absorbing about 31% more carbon dioxide than previously believed. Published in the journal Nature, this research is expected to enhance Earth system models used to forecast climate trends and underscores the critical role of natural carbon sequestration in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.
The amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere via photosynthesis from land plants is known as Terrestrial Gross Primary Production, or GPP. It represents the largest carbon exchange between land and atmosphere on the planet. GPP is typically cited in petagrams of carbon per year. One petagram equals 1 billion metric tons, which is roughly the amount of CO2 emitted each year from 238 million gas-powered passenger vehicles.
Improved Estimates Using New Models
A team of scientists led by Cornell University, with support from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, used new models and measurements to assess GPP from the land at 157 petagrams of carbon per year, up from an estimate of 120 petagrams established 40 years ago and currently used in most estimates of Earth’s carbon cycle.
Researchers developed an integrated model that traces the movement of the chemical compound carbonyl sulfide, or OCS, from the air into leaf chloroplasts, the factories inside plant cells that carry out photosynthesis. The research team quantified photosynthetic activity by tracking OCS. The compound largely follows the same path through a leaf as CO2, is closely related to photosynthesis, and is easier to track and measure than CO2 diffusion. For these reasons, OCS has been used as a photosynthesis proxy at the plant and leaf levels. This study showed that OCS is well suited to estimate photosynthesis at large scales and over long periods of time, making it a reliable indicator of worldwide GPP.
The team used plant data from a variety of sources to inform model development. One of the sources was the LeafWeb database, established at ORNL in support of the DOE Terrestrial Ecosystem Science Scientific Focus Area, or TES-SFA. LeafWeb collects data about photosynthetic traits from scientists around the world to support carbon cycle modeling. The scientists verified the model results by comparing them with high-resolution data from environmental monitoring towers instead of satellite observations, which can be hindered by clouds, particularly in the tropics.
Key to the new estimate is a better representation of a process called mesophyll diffusion — how OCS and CO2 move from leaves into chloroplasts where carbon fixation occurs. Understanding mesophyll diffusion is essential to figuring out how efficiently plants are conducting photosynthesis, and even how they might adapt to changing environments.
The Importance of Mesophyll Conductance
Lianhong Gu, co-author, photosynthesis expert, and distinguished staff scientist in ORNL’s Environmental Sciences Division, helped develop the project’s mesophyll conductance model, which represents numerically the diffusion of OCS in leaves, as well as the linkage between OCS diffusion and photosynthesis.
“Figuring out how much CO2 plants fix each year is a conundrum that scientists have been working on for a while,” Gu said. “The original estimate of 120 petagrams per year was established in the 1980s, and it stuck as we tried to figure out a new approach. It’s important that we get a good handle on global GPP since that initial land carbon uptake affects the rest of our representations of Earth’s carbon cycle.”
“We have to make sure the fundamental processes in the carbon cycle are properly represented in our larger-scale models,” Gu added. “For those Earth-scale simulations to work well, they need to represent the best understanding of the processes at work. This work represents a major step forward in terms of providing a definitive number.”
Implications for Tropical Rainforests and Future Climate Predictions
Pan-tropical rainforests accounted for the biggest difference between previous estimates and the new figures, a finding that was corroborated by ground measurements, Gu said. The discovery suggests that rainforests are a more important natural carbon sink than previously estimated using satellite data.
Understanding how much carbon can be stored in land ecosystems, especially in forests with their large accumulations of biomass in wood, is essential to making predictions of future climate change.
“Nailing down our estimates of GPP with reliable global-scale observations is a critical step in improving our predictions of future CO2 in the atmosphere, and the consequences for global climate,” said Peter Thornton, Corporate Fellow and lead for the Earth Systems Science Section at ORNL.
The results of this study point to the importance of including key processes, such as mesophyll conductance, in model representations of photosynthesis. DOE’s Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments in the Tropics has the goal of advancing model predictions of tropical forest carbon cycle response to climate change. These results can inform new model development that will reduce uncertainty in predictions of tropical forest GPP.
Reference: “Terrestrial photosynthesis inferred from plant carbonyl sulfide uptake” by Jiameng Lai, Linda M. J. Kooijmans, Wu Sun, Danica Lombardozzi, J. Elliott Campbell, Lianhong Gu, Yiqi Luo, Le Kuai and Ying Sun, 16 October 2024, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08050-3
In addition to Cornell’s School of Integrative Plant Sciences, other collaborators on the project were Wageningen University and Research of The Netherlands, Carnegie Institution for Sciences, Colorado State University, University of California Santa Cruz, and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Support came from Cornell, the National Science Foundation, and the ORNL TES-SFA, sponsored by DOE’s Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research program.
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42 Comments
31 percent more is carbon is take out of the air by plants. Canada is mostly tree’s so we have met our 2030 goal and the carbon tax can be cancelled. I would bet JT won’t even mention this study because he need and likes spending money.
That’s an outsized policy conclusion based on a single paper, based on a CO₂ proxy molecule, and magically making the inference that because (some, select) plants may be taking up 1/3 more carbon, then that carbon can be subtracted from the (increasing) rate of atmospheric CO₂ gigatonnage, and that Canada’s 9% of global forest biomass is adequate to the management of AGW. And that the buck lands on Justin Trudeau’s desk, which of course must be true inasmuch as he is colluding with George Soros and the global deep-state New World Order libruhl cabal to put Kamala Harris in office, and her husband who is probably a 33rd Degree Mason, etc.
Note to millions who missed dan’s final joke due to ignorance of history: Masons only accept Protestants, Never Catholics, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, etc. Ha ha ha.
Bogus, where did you get that misinformation? masons “welcome” anyone who believes in “a supreme being”, especially if the joiner is a secret devil-worshipper
Add megatons of CO2 from millions of acres of Canadian forests that burned up in recent years. Then subtract the CO2 megatons that those dead/burned trees Can Not remove from atmosphere during next 30 to 50 YEARS!!! Then Add megatons of more methane – CH4 – releases from those unshaded Ex-forest soils heated Hotter by direct sunlight. Canada & Earth are much worse now & thru near future!!!
Then add the ocean! Biggest absorber of CO2 on Earth..lol stop with the fear..it’s a farce
Er, the oceans cannot absrob any more C02 without becoming too acidic for marine life to live in them. That will render the primary food supply orf 2 billion people barren. I guess it’s easier to laugh than face these fearful facts, but please stop with the ignorance just because you think by saying anything it has to be true because you are able to say it.
Perhaps you forgot that they also have plant life that photosynthesizes? A great deal more than the land does, in fact. Regardless of your opinion it is pretty evident at this point that nature sequesters a lot more carbon dioxide than we guesstimated 40 years ago, and the gradual increase in atmospheric CO2 we have observed since the global events known collectively as The Little Ice Age ended mid 19th century is probably mostly natural – attributable to ocean warming from a recovering sun.
What it really means is that the common false denier claim about the small percentage of human caused CO2 flux into the atmosphere is Even More Wong.
It always was wrong because the natural fluxes into the atmosphere take more out than they put in. A Denier constant argument that ignores the other half of carbon cycle, the flux out of the atmosphere
Canada’s forest have been net CO2 sources for at least 2 decades. Harper realized the that our forests should not be used in our Kyoto accounting
https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2007/nrcan-rncan/Fo93-1-2-2007E.pdf
Was it really necessary to lead with the phrase: “Scientists were wrong” ??? With growing skepticism of science and rising belief in conspiracy theories, such a misleading headline doesn’t help.
Science doesn’t deal in absolute truths, it deals in probabilities and consensus. Science represents humanity’s best current understanding of a subject, and often, scientists disagree on the same subject.
“Scientists” as a global community are therefore never wrong per se. There is no paper which states that its conclusions on CO2 absorption by plants is the final and unassailable truth. For all we know, a paper will come out next week saying that the number is actually 40% or maybe 25% – those papers will not be “wrong” nor do they make the 31% figure wrong.
“…, it deals in probabilities and consensus.”
I was with you up until the “consensus” claim. It doesn’t matter how many or what percentage of scientists agree with a particular paradigm — a single, replicable experiment that demonstrates that the consensus is wrong cancels all their votes. You implicitly acknowledge that when you say that there is no “final and unassailable truth.” It is best if everyone keeps an open mind and acknowledges that The Truth is tentative and subject to change at any time. Consensus isn’t enough to prevent change, although it all too frequently slows the process down.
“Science is about Evidence, not Consensus”
https://stanfordreview.org/science-california-lockdown-evidence/
you are citing an opinion, that’s not consensus, either
An opinion that is considerably more trustworthy than some anonymous person.
okay, but COVID policies don’t cancel all the consensus science. in the early days of the COVID pandemic, there was no consensus science driving policy. it was politicians adopting policies to avoid worst case scenarios. you are conflating political decisions with science, because that’s your agenda, attacking the scientific method and critical peer review
“Don’t pay attention to ‘authorities,’ think for yourself.” — Richard P. Feynman
Unfortunately, 50% of the population are brainless idiots that can barely feed themselves, let alone actually think a rational thought.
Let’s see. Six social distancing 6’ was just arbitrary. Cloth masks are useless. Vaccine did not stop the spread of CoVid. Herd immunity denial cost first responders their jobs. Ivermectin and most other therapeutic treatments were denied trial status. A lil my government “scientists.”
It wasn’t about not knowing it was about maintaining control.
Congratulations, you don’t understand vaccines, masks, or herd immunity at all. Vaccines do not stop the spread of viruses, that isn’t how they work or their major purpose. Vaccines increase the effectiveness of the immune system to combat the virus. This reduces length and severity of infection and makes you contagious for less time, but ultimately it’s to reduce the chance that the virus may kill you or give you long-term symptoms.
Masks work by reducing spread from those already infected. They aren’t perfect solutions but they do factually reduce spread. They do NOT however protect you from contracting the virus if you wear one.
Herd immunity is slow and its efficacy is limited at best, even in ideal conditions.
Now, that said, no policy ever created should dictate mandatory medical treatments of any kind, for any reason. Ever. People should NEVER be penalized for not taking medical treatments or following quarantine requirements. It doesn’t matter what altruistic reason they come up with for the policies. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are equal…they do not trump each other or override each other.
Thank you for bringing that point forward. I couldn’t agree more. I wonder if the people that write these headlines ever read the comments.
Of course, never necessary. This site competes against many others which Use even Bigger Lies in their click bait headlines to grab your eyeballs for sale to their advertisers!!! And while typing this, a video of large bear walking to small child on hospital bed, with headline, “Bear walks into hospital…”. How do we sue these False Advertisers????
If only editors and authors chose not to pander to sensationalist agendas to make a paper go viral
you are correct.
Good news. But regardless, CO2 in the atmosphere is accelerating. There are no natural carbon sinks that will address climate change without massive changes in human behavior.
“…, CO2 in the atmosphere is accelerating.”
Not significantly. It has been essentially increasing linearly for about the last 25 years, with an annual increase of only 0.3 ppmv over the last 12 years, against a background where the increase actually decreases sometimes.
Take a look at the graphs found here: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
Note the graph on the right, particularly since about 2000 CE.
Ocean Stratification and Heating Oct. 2024 Bob Matheson
Perhaps a major oversight? Researchers have now discovered that 78% of the nano-plastics in the ocean are due to automobile (car) tires. So certainly for a century we’ve been loading the oceans with black tire goo! CO2 only reflects heat, but don’t we have to quantify all the significant heat sources? Around the world the ocean temperature stratification has been increasing. What better source of this effect than oceans full of black tire goo? Surely this is a massive new heat source that is not considered in climate models?
And as one tauted solution to warming, Electric Cars, cars that are twice as heavy and three times as powerful. So if tires are discovered to be the largest source of warming, our solution is Electric Tire Grinders, Thanks Elon?
Perhaps white tires?
I have heard some ocean life forms are now digesting nano-plastics, will that be helpful?
There is currently zero evidence that micro and nano-plastics have a single detrimental effect. There is zero research, zero credible studies, zero information whatsoever on the matter. Also, there is absolutely NO way for them to come to that conclusion given that we’ve been using plastics for literally decades. I would call that study flawed at best, and criminally inaccurate at worst.
Am I the only one who finds the photo at the top makes no perspective sense?
Credit: Jeffrey Warren/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
I’ve tried to track down other photos of the tower by Dr. Warren, or by anyone else, and could only find a ground-view from the base of the tower that does make sense. I’m wondering if the image didn’t come directly from Warren but is some kind of hallucinatory DALL-E or Midjourney composite that SciTech’ art department produced, derived from Warren’s photos and other forest photographs.
That’s alright, well cut 25% more trees and use them for biofuel; pump that sweet, sweet CO2 back into atmosphere – and make the climate model great again!
From a plants perspective we are already on the way to a better climate – CO2 levels at about 3x what they are now and a few more degrees average ambient temperature is almost optimal. Human perspectives are bias to human needs / wants in rather narrow fashion. I could be wrong, but I don’t think the universe has a bias to humans or life in general, it would destroy us without hesitation and would not even notice we were ever here. Have a good one.
Science is not a consensus
yes, science is consensus. open any science text book and what you read is consensus. consensus is arrived at by applying the scientific method and critical peer review. your assertion is antiscience rhetoric
It is consensus until it isn’t. Search for “paradigm shifts.” Tell me what happened to the ‘science’ of geosynclines.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” — Richard P. Feynman
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” — Richard P. Feynman
There is a lot of nonesense over this. The simplest solution is reforrestation. Even farmers planting swathes around arable land will reduce the need for chemicals, reduce flooding, increase soil and improve oxygen levels. If this does not take place then ultimately the land will become a desert and our atmosphere unbreathable! It is only financial greed that has prevented this and the ending of fossil fuel oil and gas for energy. Hydrogen is readily available with an exhaust of water vapour.
But it is so much easier to funnel tax payer money into pie in the sky carbon capture technologies that I’m sure no politician has a stake in. People always forget to mention that the earth has solved the problem of rampant carbon in the atmosphere long before humans were around, but plants were. Problem is you can’t drift billions out of the economy by planting trees and plants…
So plant more trees and stop cutting down the rain forests
Planting more trees requires conventional transportation to plant, fertilize and protect them. That will obviously add more CO2.. Stop cutting down trees makes more sense, until you realize why. The land is needed for agriculture to feed the increasing number of people.
1) Pick any eclipse anywhere in the world.
2) trend the weather for the month containing a date 6 days after the eclipse.
You will see about a 3 day period with a temperature bump of 3 degrees or more.
You will find this for almost any city within hundreds of kilometres of the path of totality.
I believe this is caused by dark matter, scientists may come up with a different explanation for this but whatever the cause is the effect is very obvious. This heat source needs to be investigated as it may be cheaper and easier to mitigate a portion of this heat source.
sp, losing pan tropical forests, as is happening now, will be of greater consequence, driving global warming higher
It’s remarkable that many people don’t seem to realize that plants, regardless of efficiency, are not a permanent way to store carbon. From single-celled algae to redwoods they will die and all of the CO2 they captured in their biomass will be recycled back into the atmosphere. That’s one of the reasons why industrial carbon capture and geological burial is so heavily subsidized even thought it cannot bury enough to affect the climate.
I remember learning about the earths water cycle in sci class, but it was never said that it is also the earths cooling cycle. Water vapor carries thermal energy to the upper atmosphere, radiates those BTU’s in every direction until it has lost enough energy to condense again and fall back to earth. More of the story is the temp/pressure relationship of the vapor point of water. The atmospheric pressure gradient from sea level to the top of Mt. Everest, or any high place, effects the local temperatures of that elevation due to vapor point of water being at a lower temperature. I.e. atmospheric pressure has a direct effect on the temperature at which water evaporates, and that directly effects the ambient temperatures. But wait there’s more, how much thermal energy went into melting all the ice that previously covered entire continents, and now that heat sink is essentially gone, but the thermal source that melted it remains, is also a large factor. Not to mention where all the thermal energy went when the ice sheets were forming in the first place Then we got a planet with a hot core, all that thermal energy is trying to escape to the lower temperature surface, although slow it does contribute. We have recently learned that there is nuclear activity within the earth, but do we know if the activity fluctuates. And lets also talk about the amount of thermal energy humans have contributed onto the system – its a lot, might be more of a factor than CO2 even. Well, My prediction is that when we get near the max capacity of the earths cooling system we will not have a nice blue sky day very often and the atmospheric pressure at sea level will increase. We need all the data gathered and modeled. Have a good one.