{"id":4151,"date":"2026-11-10T20:25:46","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T20:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/finally-some-good-climate-news-soil-carbon-storage-capacity-has-recovered\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T20:25:48","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T20:25:48","slug":"finally-some-good-climate-news-soil-carbon-storage-capacity-has-recovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/finally-some-good-climate-news-soil-carbon-storage-capacity-has-recovered\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally Some Good Climate News: Soil Carbon Storage Capacity Has Recovered"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

After having declined significantly over the two previous years, the Earth’s soils\u2019 capacity to sequester carbon dioxide experienced a dramatic rebound in 2025.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Massive Recovery<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The vegetation of forests, grasslands, and wetlands absorbs atmospheric CO2<\/strong> during its growth, and re-releases it when it decomposes or burns. In recent decades, these ecosystems have tended to take in more carbon than they have released, thanks to rising global temperatures and the fertilizing effect of this greenhouse gas.<\/p>\n

Read also<\/span> Under magenta solar modules, Swedish broccoli reaches its normal size, but it needs almost another month<\/span><\/section>\n

Under the influence of an exceptional El Ni\u00f1o and massive wildfires in the Amazon, this trend came to a near halt in 2023 and 2024, resulting in unprecedented CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

As new research, based on satellite observations and computer simulations, shows, the \u201cterrestrial sink\u201d recovered last year, sequestering about 2.36 gigatons of carbon, i.e. 0.71 more than the mean for the 2015-2022 period.<\/p>\n

According to the authors of the study, preprinted on the arXiv<\/em> server, this rebound is essentially explained by a spectacular vegetative growth in the world\u2019s tropical forests. \u201cThe climate has normalized, notably in Africa and the Amazon, which has allowed plants to restore their capacity to sequester carbon<\/em>,\u201d explains Philippe Ciais, of the Laboratoire des sciences du climat et de l\u2019environnement.<\/p>\n

Read also<\/span> The night fire smoke continues to evolve, and air humidity decides whether it browns or fragments<\/span><\/section>\n
\"foret-amazonie\"<\/figure>\n

A Short-Term Resilience<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Until now, natural sinks\u2014both oceanic and terrestrial\u2014are estimated to have absorbed roughly half of the CO2 linked to human activities. But this enormous \u201cboost\u201d will not last forever. Unless emissions of this greenhouse gas plummet drastically, there is concern that the Earth\u2019s biosphere could transition from a carbon sink to a carbon source in the coming decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lands prove remarkably resilient in the short term, but as extreme weather events, driven by climate change, become more frequent, this capacity is compromised<\/em>,\u201d notes Mike O\u2019Sullivan of the University of Exeter.<\/p>\n

The ongoing \u201csuper El Ni\u00f1o<\/em>\u201d currently afflicting the Pacific raises fears of a fresh collapse in the soils\u2019 capacity to sequester carbon as early as next year, with an increased risk of droughts and fires in key tropical regions.<\/p>\n

Read also<\/span> The polar vortex wobbles two weeks ahead of records, but its effect on France remains uncertain<\/span><\/section>\n

Last year, a study had revealed that African fig trees were turning carbon dioxide into stone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2703,893,590,645,803,66,2704,1551,524],"class_list":["post-4151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-capacity","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-finally","tag-good","tag-news","tag-recovered","tag-soil","tag-storage","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4153,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4151\/revisions\/4153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}