Terrestrial ecosystems draw about 123 billion tonnes of carbon (450 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, CO2) from the atmosphere each year. Based on worldwide local measurements and data-driven model simulations, an international team of researchers led by Christian Beer of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena has for the first time provided an observation-based estimate of the largest global flux of carbon between land and atmosphere and of its climate dependencies.
The researchers evaluated the result against spatially explicit process models including the leading model LPJmL from PIK. Tropical ecosystems such as rain forests and savannas account for almost two thirds of the CO2 uptake, they report in an article published by the journal …

Global Temperature Report: May 2010

First five months of 2010 second warmest on record
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade
May temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.53 C (about 0.95 degrees Fahrenheit) above
20-year average for May.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.78 C (about 1.40 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year
average for May.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.29 C (about 0.52 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year
average for April.
Tropics: +0.71 C (about 1.28 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for
May.
April temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.50 C above 20-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.80 C above 20-year average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.20 C above 20-year average
Tropics: +63 C above 20-year average
(All temperature anomalies are based on a 20-year average (1979-1998) for
the month reported.)
Notes on data released June 7, 2010:
In the race to …

Second warmest April on record is warmest month in the Arctic
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.14 C per decade
April temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp.: +0.50 C (about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for April.
Northern Hemisphere: +0.80 C (about 1.44 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for April.
Southern Hemisphere: +0.21 C (about 0.38 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for April.
Tropics: +0.63 C (about 1.34 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for April.
March temperatures (revised):
Global Composite: +0.66 C above 20-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.85 C above 20-year average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.46 C above 20-year average
Tropics: +73 C above 20-year average
(All temperature anomalies are based on a 20-year average (1979-1998) for the month reported.)
Notes on data released May 6, 2010:
The …

Study examines grasslands and grazing management impacts on global warming
Grazinglands represent one of the largest land resources in the world, yet their role as net sinks or sources of greenhouse gases is essentially unknown. Previous research has emphasized the role of grazing management on the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide as soil organic carbon. However, there is a lack of information regarding how grazing management impacts the flux of two potent GHGs, nitrous oxide and methane.
A team of scientists lead by Mark Liebig at the USDA-ARS Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory estimated net global warming potential for three grazing management systems located in central North Dakota. The grazing management systems represented two native vegetation pastures …

An international study involving Monash University mathematician Dr Malcolm Clark has been used to demonstrate the impact of global warming and to predict the effect further warming will have on plant life.
The study, published in the International Journal of Climatology, predicts a difference in flowering times of certain plants in certain climates by as much as 50 days by the year 2080.
The study, by Dr Malcolm Clark, an Adjunct Research Fellow at Monash University’s School of Mathematical Sciences and Professor Roy Thompson, a geophysicist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, investigated the possibilities of flowering spring plants blooming in the depths of winter as the plants respond to the effects of global warming.
The study …

Using a completely new method, researchers have shown that high atmospheric and oceanic oxygen content makes the climate colder.
In prehistoric times, the earth experienced two periods of large increases and fluctuations in the oxygen level of the atmosphere and oceans. These fluctuations also lead to an explosion of multicellular organisms in the oceans, which are the predecessors for life as we know it today. The results are now being published in Nature.
Everybody talks about CO2 and other greenhouse gases as causes of global warming and the large climate changes we are currently experiencing. But what about the atmospheric and oceanic oxygen content? Which role does oxygen content play in global warming?
This question has become extremely …

A rare opportunity has allowed a team of biologists to evaluate corals and the essential, photosynthetic algae that live inside their cells before, during, and after a period in 2005 when global warming caused sea-surface temperatures in the Caribbean Ocean to rise.
The team, led by Penn State Assistant Professor of Biology Todd LaJeunesse, found that a rare species of algae that is tolerant of stressful environmental conditions proliferated in corals as the more-sensitive algae were being expelled from corals. The results will be published in the online version of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B on 9 September 2009.
“Symbiodinium trenchi is normally a rare species of micro-alga in the Caribbean,” said LaJeunesse. “Because …