The Incredibly Flexible Theory takes another hit

The incredibly credible theory of man-made global warming took another hit with a recent Cornell University study:

Soils include many forms of carbon, including organic carbon from leaf litter and vegetation and black carbon from the burning of organic matter. It takes a few years for organic carbon to decompose, as microbes eat it and convert it to carbon dioxide. But black carbon can take 1,000-2,000 years, on average, to convert to carbon dioxide.

By entering realistic estimates of stocks of black carbon in soil from two Australian savannas into a computer model that calculates carbon dioxide release from soil, the researchers found that carbon dioxide emissions from soils were reduced by about 20 percent over 100 years, as compared with simulations that did not take black carbon's long shelf life into account.

The findings are significant because soils are by far the world's largest source of carbon dioxide, producing 10 times more carbon dioxide each year than all the carbon dioxide emissions from human activities combined. Small changes in how carbon emissions from soils are estimated, therefore, can have a large impact.

Of course it being the incredibly flexible theory this study will be discounted and those responsible for it will be excommunicated from the scientific community.

More on the incredibly flexible theory here and here.

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at November 20, 2008 10:34 PM

Comments

Posted by: asombra at November 21, 2008 09:37 AM