Just 565 Gt CO2 to go till 2050 under 450 Scenario – 80% proven fossil fuel reserves should remain untouched

In order to limit global warming to an average of no more than 2 degrees Celsius, the official UN climate target, the equivalent of 2230 gigatonnes CO2 of proven fossil fuel reserves should remain in the ground, a report published on Monday by the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI) states.

4x too much CO2 in proven fossil fuel reserves

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Soils don´t need warming to add another positive climate feedback

Soils climate feedback: CO2, methane, nitrous oxideWe recently reported on a possible negative carbon feedback of forest soils in higher latitudes: when such soils warm, nutrient availability may increase, as would (therefore) biomass production and CO2 uptake.

But not all climate feedbacks operate through temperature. It now turns out microbes react directly to CO2 – by producing more methane and nitrous oxide, other greenhouse gases and respectively 23 and 300 times as potent as CO2.

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First proof ocean CO2 uptake has started to slow down

Warming oceans re-emit CO2From raw measurements we know that in recent years the oceans seem to take up a smaller percentage of the CO2 we emit. Analysing available data a group of three researchers finds in part of the North Atlantic this is not due to natural variability, but to warming waters, which means yet another positive feedback to climate change has set in.

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DNA: the building block of a new class of nanomaterials

For years, nanotechnologists have been captivated by the potential of quantum dots – semiconducting particles that can absorb and emit light efficiently and at custom-chosen wavelengths. Their true potential however, has been difficult to grasp because of the lack of a method to build higher-order structures. So until now, applications have been ‘limited’ to things like biological dyes and diode lasers, with many possible groundbreaking applications on the shelf.

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Iron fertilisation geoengineering affects deep sea ecology too

Iron fertilisation geoengineeringOcean iron fertilisation, one of the most discussed CDR geoengineering proposals, deliberately tries to stimulate biological activity in the upper ocean. New research shows this in turn affects ecology at the ocean floor too. Let’s just hope sea cucumbers don’t eat all of the carbonate we had intended to store for eternity.

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Ongoing paleo study may help tune CO2 climate sensitivity

Here on Bitsofscience.org we’ve discussed the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) – that sudden CO2 and methane-induced peak climate warming (or ‘hyperthermal’) 55.8 million years ago of around 6 degrees over 20,000 years – on several occasions, because it offers an important warning with respect to the escalating warming potential of positive climate feedbacks.

Another interesting period in the Earth’s history is the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum, following the PETM event, when both CO2 and temperature remained high for millions of years – with a few lesser hyperthermals superimposed. Altogether Earth´s temperatures during the early Eocene were at their highest in at least 65 million years till now, possibly some 400 million years.

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