Carbon And Biomass: Earth Can Sustain More Plant Growth Than Estimates Showed
Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - 10:10
in Earth & Climate
A new analysis suggests the planet can produce much more land-plant biomass – the total material in leaves, stems, roots, fruits, grains and other terrestrial plant parts – than previous estimates showed. In modeling, earth scientists tend to make a lot of simplifying assumptions, and one of those assumptions has been that biomass of now will be biomass of the future, which is in defiance of both science and history. A new paper in Environmental Science and Technology recalculates the limit of terrestrial plant productivity and finds that it is much higher than many current estimates allow. read more