Astute Farm Management Practices Can Significantly Enhance Soil Carbon Sequestration
Working hand-in-hand, farmers and scientists can make a major contribution to the effort to slow the rate-of-rise of the air's CO2 content - not that it's needed to forestall global warming, but because it's one of the best things that can be done to promote soil health.

CO2-Enriched Plants Follow Frugal Dictum of Waste Not, Want Not with Respect to Valuable Captured Carbon
Just as a penny saved is a penny earned to us humans, so it is with a gram of carbon to earth's plants; and rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2 tend to make them ever more protective of their most highly-prized resource.

Woody Plants Expand Their Ranges, Pumping More Carbon Into the Soils Beneath Them, as the Air's CO2 Content Rises
Scientists have long sought the "missing carbon" that seems to be exiting the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate as the air's CO2 content continues to climb. Could it be it's right under their noses?

Another Global Warming Horror Story Bites the Dust
Climate alarmists have long and vociferously argued that global warming would greatly enhance the evolution of CO2 from boreal peatlands as they experience the melting of permafrost, which consequence, they further claim, would catastrophically exacerbate the putative CO2-induced increase in air temperature. Real-world data, however, suggest just the opposite, i.e., that the melting of permafrost in boreal peatlands will actually result in the biological sequestration of more carbon.

Another Silver Lining in a Global Warming Storm Cloud
Are things really as bad as the climate alarmists make them out to be? Is earth's climate really as sensitive to CO2 as they want us to believe? Of course not, as real-world data clearly show. Really!

Will Forest Carbon Sink Capacity Fade Away as Trees Age?
Climate alarmists would have us believe that forests will only function as significant carbon sinks while they are young and vigorous. Real-world data, however, suggest this model-based "age discrimination" is without much merit. In fact, the measurements show it's flat out wrong.

The Highly-Hyped No Regrets Aspect of Carbon Sequestration Misses Its Real Significance
If you're going to trust someone about the merits of sequestering carbon in the planet's soils, put your trust in those who work close to the land ... and get their hands dirty doing it. Soil scientists are such people; they know what they're talking about.

Are Natural Lakes and Man-Made Reservoirs Significant Sinks for Anthropogenic Carbon?
Read on. The answer may surprise you.

The Color of Carbon
Some say it's black, as in coal and oil. Others say it's invisible, as in natural gas and atmospheric CO2. We biological types, however, say it's green, as in the leaves and needles of earth's trees, which remove CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester its carbon in their tissues and the soils that support them.

Carbon Sequestration in Africa: A Well-Kept Secret
Is it positive? Negative? Amenable to human manipulation? The answers might surprise you.

CO2 and Soil Fungi: A Powerful Combination that Helps Plants Sequester More Carbon
There's more to terrestrial biological carbon sequestration than meets the eye ... literally. Underground, filamentous hyphae of beneficial fungi that link plant and soil work to ensure that carbon in decaying plant biomass is trapped in secure soil aggregates. And as the air's CO2 content rises, these fungi become ever more proficient at performing their important job.

Carbon Sequestration by a Subarctic Sedge Fen
Will northern peatlands release massive amounts of carbon to the atmosphere if the temperature trend of the past century ultimately returns the earth to a climatic condition similar to that of the Medieval Warm Period? Climate alarmists would have you think yes; but if you did ... you'd be thinking wrong.

Global Warming Will Not Cause the Release of Great Quantities of Carbon from Forest Soils
Proposals to rely on new and old forests to remove large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester its carbon in the soils in which they grow have met with stiff resistance from many who falsely claim that global warming will actually turn the proposed carbon sources into carbon sinks. We thus review several recent studies that should once-and-for-all put this bugaboo to rest.

Rising Seas Trigger Carbon Sequestration in Tidal Marshes
An important new study adds to the mounting evidence that rising seas promote the sequestration of huge amounts of carbon in the soils of coastal marshes, thereby providing a significant negative feedback to counter potential CO2-induced global warming.

Enriching the Air with CO2 Enables Plants to Sequester Carbon at Higher Temperatures Than They Do Currently
Rising Seas Trigger Carbon Sequestration in Tidal Marshes: Like the elixir of life that it truly is, atmospheric CO2 - in greater abundance than what we enjoy today - enables plants to better withstand the physiological ravages of high-temperature stress that are a common occurrence for nearly all plants at one time or another in their various life cycles, either seasonally or diurnally. And by keeping plants going and growing under these stressful circumstances, elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 enable them to continue removing CO2 from the atmosphere and preparing it for eventual storage in the soils in which they grow.

Deciduous Forests Exert a Brake on Global Warming as They Lengthen Their Growing Seasons and Sequester More Carbon
This significant negative feedback phenomenon may well be much stronger than anyone has heretofore thought.

Carbon Sequestration in Soils: Where Measurements Lead, Theory Is Sure to Follow
Theory has often anticipated great discoveries; but real-world data reign supreme, as recent developments in the field of soil science clearly demonstrate.

Global Warming: Can It Be Slowed by Worms?
Faced with a perceived problem that challenges the ability of technological man to even make a dent in it, nature reveals another of its secrets for keeping its cool, but only after some ingenious scientific probing of an obscure facet of its complex suite of biological thermoregulatory systems.

Atmospheric CO2, Soil Nitrogen and Plant Phenolics: How Their Interaction Influences Carbon Sequestration in Soils
A large body of research is beginning to illustrate how the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content is enhancing the rate at which carbon is sequestered in the world's soils. A key element in this phenomenon is adequate soil nutrition; and atmospheric CO2 enrichment promotes the development of this condition too.

Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition: Its Long-Term Impact On Carbon Sequestration in Soils
The world is a complex and interconnected place, where very little happens independent of everything else. So it is with anthropogenic CO2 emissions; they are accompanied by emissions of nitrogenous compounds that influence a host of biological phenomena in ways that ultimately enhance the removal CO2 from the atmosphere and temper its ability to induce global warming.

CO2 and Nitrogen Effects on Soil Carbon Sequestration: The Whole is Often Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
In prior carbon sequestration commentaries, we have discussed how atmospheric CO2 enrichment and nitrogen deposition each tend to enhance the capacities of earth's soils to capture and store carbon. In this essay, we look at what happens when both phenomena occur at the same time.

CO2 to the Rescue ... Again!
Atmospheric CO2 enrichment helps plants cope with any number of environmental threats to their existence. Now comes a study that shows how it does the same for soil microbes, and how the carbon sequestration consequences of this phenomenon may likewise benefit a host of other life forms.

Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment: Its Impact on the Abundance of Soil Organic Matter
There are two ways to increase the size of any dynamic reservoir: increase the rate of inflow to the reservoir or reduce its outflow rate. So it is with the organic carbon that is deposited in the world's soil bank: if the store of carbon is to grow (and thereby temper the rate of global warming), carbon must either be deposited faster or withdrawn slower. How fortunate we are that the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content promotes both of these processes.

Global Warming: How It May Impact Soil Carbon Storage by Reducing the Frequency and Severity of Freezing
New research shows that more frequent and more severe freezing leads to more CO2 being released to the atmosphere when soils thaw. In a gradually warming world, therefore, there is a tendency for less CO2 to be released to the atmosphere each year, as freezing events become less numerous and less severe.

Rising Temperatures, Atlantic Hurricanes, United States Forests and Carbon Sequestration: Another Negative Feedback Phenomenon That Reduces Global Warming
The world is a complex place, with innumerable interconnected phenomena that work to maintain the planet's temperature within limits conducive to the continued existence of life. We here describe another of these negative feedback loops that, to our knowledge, has not been identified previously.

The Bright Side of Soil Erosion
Soil erosion has long been looked upon as something to be prevented at almost all costs. Now, however, new research reveals that - in moderate amounts, at least - this nemesis of the past may have a significant redeeming quality.