Planetary Carbon Sequestration: Earth's Biosphere Flexes Its Muscles
Averaged over the globe, the anthropogenic CO2 emission rate has risen nearly 40% over the past two decades, yet the rate at which CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere has remained constant or even slightly declined. Why?

Recent Studies Show Global Warming May Enhance Soil Carbon Storage and Thereby Slow Its Own Progression
Long-held beliefs about the temperature dependency of ecosystem net CO2 exchange rate - and, therefore, ecosystem carbon sequestration potential - are inexorably crumbling before the advancing tide of real-world scientific research.

Elevated CO2 May Slow Plant Decomposition Rates, Increasing Soil Carbon Storage
The title says it all. Besides stimulating plants to produce more biomass, atmospheric CO2 enrichment often induces them to produce tissues that are more resistant to physical, chemical and biological degradation.

Trees Spend More Time Sequestering Carbon with More CO2 in the Air
A little-heralded effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment is that it often enables plants to do productive work earlier in the day, as well as later in the day. Working longer hours, or at least parts of hours, tireless trees thus store more carbon in their tissues and the soil bank beneath them.

Elevated CO2 Increases Leaf Longevity, Giving Plants Extra Time to Deposit More Carbon in Earth's Soil Bank System
Following on the heels of our last Carbon Sequestration Essay, we note that not only do plants work longer days in CO2-enriched atmospheres, they also work more days, as they lengthen their productive growing seasons.