Tara Greaves | October 23

Eastern Daily Press - Homeowners are being encouraged to use energy more efficiently as Norfolk scientists reveal the level of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising 35pc faster than expected.

At the start of energy efficiency week, a team of UEA scientists last night published a report concluding that inefficiency in the use of fossil fuels increased levels of CO2, widely agreed to be one of the main causes of climate change, by 17pc.

The other 18pc came from the decline in the efficiency of natural land and ocean sinks which soak up CO2 from the atmosphere - a problem highlighted in another piece of UEA research, as reported in yesterday's EDP.

** Leaked documents detail strategy for climate change U-turn
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"We found that nearly half of the decline in the efficiency of the ocean CO2 sink is due to the intensification of the winds in the Southern Ocean."

The findings are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The study also states that global CO2 emissions were up to 9.9bn tons of carbon in 2006, 35pc above emissions in 1990 (used as a reference year in the Kyoto Protocol).

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Oceans losing ability to absorb carbon

Agençe France-Presse, October 23

PARIS: The world's oceans may be losing their ability to soak up extra CO2 from the atmosphere, with the potential to exacerbate global warming, say new studies.

Absorption of atmospheric CO2 by the North Atlantic plunged by half between the mid-1990s and the period from 2002 to 2005, British researchers say in the November Journal of Geophysical Research.

The data comes from sensors lowered by a container ship carrying bananas, which makes a round trip from the West Indies to Britain every month. It has generated more than 90,000 measurements of ocean CO2.

The discovery touches on a key aspect of the global warming question, because for decades the ocean has been acting as a buffer, absorbing much of the CO2 released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. If the sea performs less well as a carbon sponge, or "sink" according to the technical jargon, more CO2 will remain in the atmosphere, thus accelerating the greenhouse effect.

Ute Schuster, who led the research with Professor Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences, admitted she was astonished by the data.

"Such large changes are a tremendous surprise. We expected that the uptake would change only slowly because of the ocean's great mass," she said.

Research last year pointed to rising acidification of the oceans as a result of CO2 uptake, highlighting the risk of carbon saturation as well as a looming peril for biodiversity.

Schuster was cautious about drawing too swift a conclusion from the new research, however...

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Global Carbon Project Press Release: Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks

This study finds that the recent swift increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to faster economic growth coupled with a halt in carbon intensity reductions, in addition to natural sinks removing a smaller proportion of emissions from the air. Efficiency of natural sinks to remove emissions from human activities has been declining for 50 years.

While rising anthropogenic emissions due to increased economic growth have been established as the driver of accelerated atmospheric CO2 this study shows that both the slow down of natural sinks and the halt to improvements in carbon intensity are contributing more than one third of the increase

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University of East Anglia Press Release: North Atlantic slows on the uptake of CO2

Further evidence for the decline of the oceans' historical role as an important sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide is supplied by new research by environmental scientists from the University of East Anglia.

October 22

Since the industrial revolution, much of the CO2 we have released into the atmosphere has been taken up by the world’s oceans which act as a strong ‘sink’ for the emissions.

This has slowed climate change. Without this uptake, CO2 levels would have risen much faster and the climate would be warming more rapidly.

A paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research by Dr Ute Schuster and Professor Andrew Watson of UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences again raises concerns that the oceans might be slowing their uptake of CO2.

Results of their decade-long study in the North Atlantic show that the uptake in this ocean, which is the most intense sink for atmospheric CO2, slowed down dramatically between the mid-nineties and the early 2000s.

A slowdown in the sink in the Southern Ocean has already been inferred, but the change in the North Atlantic is greater and more sudden, and could be responsible for a substantial proportion of the observed weakening.

The observations were made from merchant ships equipped with automatic instruments for measuring carbon dioxide in the water. Much of the data has come from a container ship carrying bananas from the West Indies to the UK, making a round-trip of the Atlantic every month. The MV Santa Maria, chartered by Geest, has generated more than 90,000 measurements of CO2 in the past few years.

The results show that the uptake by the North Atlantic halved between the mid-90s, when data was first gathered, and 2002-05.

“Such large changes are a tremendous surprise. We expected that the uptake would change only slowly because of the ocean’s great mass,” said Dr Schuster.

“We are cautious about attributing this exclusively to human-caused climate change because this uptake has never been measured before, so we have no baseline to compare our results to. Perhaps the ocean uptake is subject to natural ups and downs and it will recover again.”

But the direction of the change was worrying, she added, and there were some grounds for believing that a ‘saturation’ of the ocean sink would start to occur.

“The speed and size of the change show that we cannot take for granted the ocean sink for the carbon dioxide. Perhaps this is partly a natural oscillation or perhaps it is a response to the recent rapid climate warming. In either case we now know that the sink can change quickly and we need to continue to monitor the ocean uptake,” said Prof Watson.

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University of East Anglia Press Release: Downturn in carbon efficiency fuels CO2 increase

A team of scientists from the University of East Anglia, the Global Carbon Project and the British Antarctic Survey have found that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) growth has increased 35 per cent faster than expected since 2000.

October 23

Published this week in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the study found that inefficiency in the use of fossil fuels increased levels of CO2 by 17 percent, while the other 18 percent came from the decline in the efficiency of natural land and ocean sinks which soak up CO2 from the atmosphere.

The research by the shows that improvements in the carbon intensity of the global economy have stalled since 2000 after improving for 30 years, leading to the unexpected growth of atmospheric CO2.

The study also states that global CO2 emissions were up to 9.9 billion tons of carbon in 2006, 35 percent above emissions in 1990 (used as a reference year in the Kyoto Protocol).

Author Dr Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia and British Antarctic Survey said: “The decline in global sink efficiency suggests stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 is even more difficult to achieve than previously thought. We found that nearly half of the decline in the efficiency of the ocean CO2 sink is due to the intensification of the winds in the Southern Ocean”.

The study’s lead author, Dr Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project, said: “In addition to the growth of global population and wealth, we now know that significant contributions to the growth of atmospheric CO2 arise from the slow-down of natural sinks and the halt to improvements in the carbon intensity of wealth production.”

The authors analysed atmospheric CO2 observations and CO2 emissions data since 1959 and compared observed and projected trends.

Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks by Josep Canadell, Corinne Le Quéré, Michael Raupach, Christopher Field, Erik Buitenhuis, Philippe Ciais, Thomas Conway, Nathan Gillett, RA Houghton and Gregg Marland is published on Monday October 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.