Variation in bacterial community composition and excess atomic fraction 18O of bacterial species. Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2401523121
A team of scientists from Lanzhou University, working with a group of organic chemists from Nanjing Agricultural University and another colleague from Tsinghua University, all in China, found that asymmetric global warming further reduces the capacity of the soil to sequester carbon than symmetrical warming. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Previous research has shown that Earth is experiencing asymmetric global warming: warming is greater in winter than in summer. In this new effort, the researchers point out that few climate models take into account the asymmetric nature of warming, which likely skews the results.
To better understand the difference asymmetric warming could make, they began a decade-long study on the Tibetan Plateau, where they artificially controlled temperatures on plots of land over the years between 2011 and 2020. Some plots n have not been heated; some were exposed to temperatures 2°C higher than normal throughout the year; others were warmed 2.5 to 2.8°C warmer in winter and 0.5 to 0.8°C warmer during the rest of the year. After 10 years, they tested the soil to see the impact of warming.
The first soil test measured the growth rate of microbes in the soil, while the second tested carbon use efficiency. The first test was to determine whether microbes use carbon from the air to grow. The second test measured the amount of CO2 the microbes breathed in the air. Previous research has suggested that soil microbes tend to cluster more together at colder temperatures and thus breathe less CO.2.
The research team found that symmetrically heated soil caused growth rates to drop by 31% and efficiency to drop by 22%. They also found worse conditions for soils exposed to asymmetric heating: there, the declines in growth rate were 58% and 81% for efficiency.
The researchers suggest that asymmetric warming reduces carbon uptake rates in cold regions such as the poles and mountain peaks, a finding that should be reflected in climate models.
More information:
Ling Li et al, Asymmetric winter warming reduces microbial carbon use efficiency and growth more than symmetric warming throughout the year in alpine soils, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2401523121
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