Study shows increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is lower than predicted because of plants

By RAN Editor | July 31, 2024

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org
OCTOBER 14, 2014 REPORT

A team of researchers in the U.S. claims that climate models used to predict the rise in CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere are approximately 17 percent too high because they incorrectly approximate how much CO₂ plants pull from the atmosphere. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes how they studied the ability of plants to absorb increased amounts of CO₂ and discovered that they are capable of pulling more out of the atmosphere than has been previously thought and the difference is approximately equal to the error difference reported by simulation models.

Plants, as most people learn in grade-school, use light as part of the photosynthesis process to convert the suns’ energy into energy the plant can use to grow—oxygen is then emitted as a byproduct. What’s not really clear is how plants in general respond to the presence of more CO₂ in the air. Prior research has shown that some plants grow bigger, which tends to cause them to take in more CO₂.

Recently, it’s come to light that climate models have on average been off a little bit in predicting how much CO₂ is being added to the atmosphere by man-made processes. More specifically, over the years, 1901 to 2010, that error rate has been found to be on average 17 percent too high, and scientists have been racing to figure out why.