Thread by @ClimateBen

We have passed the point of no return on global warming and we can’t reverse the effects:

🔺full impact of climate change underestimated - scientists haven't taken into account carbon emitted from soil.

🔺“I think this is catastrophic for humanity"

1/7
independent.co.uk/news/science/d…

'A large and poorly understood component of global warming is the terrestrial carbon cycle feedback to the climate system'.

🔺'a global-scale, microbially mediated feedback could be very difficult, if not impossible, to halt.'

Oct 2017

2/7

science.sciencemag.org/content/358/63…

Scientists' 'ability to evaluate how much carbon goes into the soil, and where it ends up, is made difficult because it's not possible to measure directly.

"In the soil, we don't know how things are working because, if you like, it's as clear as mud"
3/7

m.phys.org/news/2016-08-u…

Earth’s future climate depends, in part, on rapid soil microbial processes that may add up to long-term impacts.

🔺 Observations from a geothermal gradient reveal decadal increases in soil-carbon loss due to persistent increases in microbial activity

4/7
nature.com/articles/s4155…

Warming soils are releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than previously thought:

potentially disastrous feedback mechanism whereby increases in global temperatures will trigger massive new carbon releases in a cycle that may be impossible to break
5/7
theguardian.com/environment/20…

'global warming is supercharging some microbial cycles on a scale big enough to trigger damaging climate feedback loops, research is showing. Bacteria are feasting on more organic material and produce extra carbon dioxide as the planet warms.'

6/7

insideclimatenews.org/news/18062019/…

'Soils hold 70% of the planet's land-based carbon — four times as much as all the world's biomass and three times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere...unsustainable agriculture means it often escapes as carbon dioxide.'

7/7

m.dw.com/en/when-nature…

Bonus

"It’s fair to say we have passed the point of no return on global warming and we can’t reverse the effects, but certainly we can dampen them,” said the biodiversity expert.

Update from April 2019:

'Crowther estimates that carbon dioxide and methane emissions from thawing soils are “accelerating climate change about 12 to 15 percent at the moment"'

Past IPCC reports "way more optimistic than they should have been.”news.yahoo.com/its-already-be…