Seas more sensitive to warming
"Marine and freshwater environments have the potential to be more sensitive to climate warming than land environments." Image: cinoby/iStockphoto In a new paper published online in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers from Australia, Europe, and North America has found that marine and freshwater environments have the potential to be more sensitive to climate warming than land environments.In the largest analysis of rates of respiration ever undertaken, the researchers collected data from diverse environments throughout the world to assess the temperature dependence of ecosystem respiration.Plants grow by taking up carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Animals then consume this plant carbon and release it back to the atmosphere through respiration. The balance between photosynthesis and respiration in ecosystems influences the global climate through its effects on CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.“Because of its importance to climate-change forecasting, scientists are keenly interested in quantifying the sensitivity of ecosystem respiration...