"Green Revolution" changes breathing of the biosphere

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=133323&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click

[font face=Serif]Press Release 14-153

[font size=5]"Green Revolution" changes breathing of the biosphere[/font]

[font size=4]Computer model links stronger seasonal oscillations in carbon dioxide to intensive agriculture[/font]

November 19, 2014

[font size=3]The intense farming practices of the "Green Revolution" are powerful enough to alter Earth's atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate, boosting the seasonal amplitude in atmospheric carbon dioxide to about 15 percent during the last five decades.

That's the key finding of a new atmospheric model that estimates that on average, the amplitude of the seasonal oscillation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing at the rate of 0.3 percent every year.

A report on the results of the model, called VEGAS, is published today in the journal Nature.

"What we are seeing is the effect of the 'Green Revolution' on Earth's metabolism," says Ning Zeng, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland and the lead developer of VEGAS, a terrestrial carbon cycle model that, for the first time, factors in changes in 20th and 21st century farming practices.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13893

[Jim Lane]

1. So it doesn't affect the long-term average, only the fluctuations?

I think what it's saying is that, during the growing season, there are now more plants growing more rapidly, so they take more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. They're part of the carbon cycle, though, so this isn't a permanent sequestration -- that carbon gets released again later (such as, I assume, when humans eat the food and then, when their bodies burn it for energy, exhale the carbon dioxide).

If that's correct, then this finding doesn't strengthen or weaken the case for anthropogenic climate change. Do I have that right?