Trends in Sink Performance
According to a report in Nature magazine, (November, 2009) the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial era, and the first time scientists have actually measured it, suggests "the oceans are struggling to keep up with rising emissions—a finding with potentially wide implications for future climate." With total world emissions from fossil fuels growing rapidly, the proportion of fossil-fuel emissions absorbed by the oceans since 2000 may have declined by as much as 10%, indicating that over time the ocean will become "a less efficient sink of manmade carbon." Samar Khatiwala, an oceanographer at Columbia University concludes that the studies suggest "we cannot count on these sinks operating in the future as they have in the past, and keep on subsidizing our ever-growing appetite for fossil fuels." However, a recent paper by Wolfgang Knorr indicates that the fraction of CO2 absorbed by carbon sinks has not changed since 1850.
Read more about this topic: Carbon Sink
Famous quotes containing the words trends in, trends, sink and/or performance:
“Thanks to recent trends in the theory of knowledge, history is now better aware of its own worth and unassailability than it formerly was. It is precisely in its inexact character, in the fact that it can never be normative and does not have to be, that its security lies.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Power-worship blurs political judgement because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“I sink back shuddering from the quest.
Earth being so good, would Heaven seem best?
Now, Heaven and she are beyond this ride.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“Nobody can misunderstand a boy like his own mother.... Mothers at present can bring children into the world, but this performance is apt to mark the end of their capacities. They can’t even attend to the elementary animal requirements of their offspring. It is quite surprising how many children survive in spite of their mothers.”
—Norman Douglas (1868–1952)