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The new insight that society must achieve a CO2 amount less than the current level is a
dramatic change from previous studies, which even most recently suggested that the
dangerous level of CO2 was likely to be 450 ppm or higher. The downward change is
caused by realization that “slow” feedback processes not included in most climate
models—such as ice melt and release of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by the soil,
permafrost, and ocean in a warming climate—can occur both remarkably quickly (such
as the sudden release of methane from melting permafrost) and on the time scale of
decades and centuries. This realization derives from both new paleoclimate data and
ongoing observations of global change, especially in the Polar Regions (Hansen et al.,
2008; Hansen et al., 2007).
The Holocene epoch, however, is now being superseded by what some are calling the
Anthropocene, in recognition of the planetary impacts the human era is triggering,
including changes to Earth’s climate regulatory services (Zalasiewicz et al., 2008;
Crutzen, 2002). A key indicator of this dramatic shift is “270 CO2e ppmv,” the
atmospheric concentration level of radiatively active trace gases (commonly known as
GHGs) over the past 10,000 years. The atmospheric global warming potential of these
various gases are standardized to CO2 equivalents in ppm volume given that CO2 is the
dominant gas (after water vapor).
GHGs are essential to maintaining the Earth’s temperature. Although comprising less
than 4/10,000th of one percent of total atmospheric gases (99% of which is comprised of
nitrogen and oxygen), without them the planet would be uninhabitable by the life forms
we recognize. In the absence of the greenhouse effect and an atmosphere, the Earth’s
average surface temperature of 14 °C could be as low as −18 °C. However, humanity’s
consumption of fossil fuels and deforestation over the past two centuries have been
steadily increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2e, to roughly 385 ppmv by 2008.
Economic projections and business-as-usual development patterns this century would
emit several trillion more tons of CO2, pushing the concentration level towards 1000
ppmv and triggering catastrophic consequences.
The world’s marine phytoplankton, terrestrial forests, vegetation, and soils are major
players in the carbon cycle. Compared to the 700 billion tons of carbon in the
atmosphere, several times this amount is stored in forests, vegetation, and soils, and fifty
times more in the ocean. The top 100 meters of ocean contain thousands of microscopic
photosynthesizing phytoplankton in each drop of water. These microscopic organisms
absorb light energy and CO2, and convert this into organic molecules for driving their
metabolism and creating cellular structures. Through their rapid life-cycle process,
marine phytoplankton transfer more than 100 million tons of carbon per day from the
atmosphere and upper ocean to the deep sea and ocean sediments, accounting for half of
the global biological uptake of CO2. This “biological pump” effectively removes the
heat-trapping CO2 from the atmosphere for centuries to millions of years (Falkowski,
2002).
Regulating GHGs is also one of the most significant ecosystem services provided by
forests and soils today. The world’s four billion hectares of forests, roughly 30 percent of
them mature, old-growth forests, store an estimated 638 Petagrams (Pg, billion metric
tons) of carbon—roughly half in biomass and deadwood and half in soils and litter to a
depth of 30 centimeters (FAO, 2006). The soil carbon in northern peatlands and
permafrost, which only a few years ago were estimated to be 850 Pg, is now thought to
be double that. Lowland tropical peatlands contain upwards of 100 Pg of carbon deposits
as deep as 20 meters (Canadell et al., 2007).
Human activity is undermining the value of these climate services in direct and indirect
ways. Directly, the deforestation of roughly 14 million hectares per year, the vast
majority of it in the tropics, emits between five and eight billion tons of CO2 into the
atmosphere (IPCC, 2007). This is roughly 20 percent of total global annual CO2
emissions, more than is released by the world’s fleet of vehicles, trucks, railroads,
airplanes, and ships combined. Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation and forest
degradation, if not prevented, are expected to increase atmospheric CO2 concentration by
as much as 129 ppm in the decades ahead (Stern, 2006).
Indirectly, human-triggered CO2 emissions are acidifying the oceans, reducing the ability
of marine phytoplankton to absorb CO2 (Doney, 2006; Behrenfeld et al., 2006). Higher
temperatures are increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires, droughts, and pest
attacks and accelerating the mortality of millions of hectares of forests and the erosion of
soil carbon (Westerling et al., 2006; Page et al., 2002; Schimel and Baker, 2002; Lal,
2005).
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