Study Detects a Slight Reprieve from the Effects of Climate Change

"[A] paper published in Nature Communications Tuesday actually contained some of the better news about climate change that we’ve heard in a while," according to an article by Chris Mooney. Which is to say, it's a "modest bit of evidence suggesting a slight, temporary reprieve in the rate at which we’re altering the planet."

The paper is by Trevor Keenan and colleagues from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It examines the terrestrial carbon sink, which is the capacity of trees, plants, and features of the planet are pulling carbon dioxide from the air.

"What the new study shows is that from 2002 to 2014, plants appear to have gone into overdrive, and started pulling more carbon dioxide out of the air than they had before," explains Mooney. Mooney goes into more of the factors involved with the planet's reaction to the additional carbon in the atmosphere, including some that the casual environmentalist might not have encountered before. Finally, Monney explains that the study does not suggest that terrestrial carbon sinks might save humanity from the effects of climate change.