Yes, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere helps plants grow, but it’s no excuse to downplay climate change
- Written by Vanessa Haverd, Principal research scientist, CSIRO
The alarming rate of carbon dioxide flowing into our atmosphere is affecting plant life in interesting ways – but perhaps not in the way you’d expect.
Despite large losses of vegetation to land clearing, drought and wildfires, carbon dioxide is absorbed and stored in vegetation and soils at a growing rate.
This is called the “land carbon sink”, a term describing how vegetation and soils around the world absorb more carbon dioxide from photosynthesis than they release. And over the past 50 years, the sink (the difference between uptake and release of carbon dioxide by those plants) has been increasing, absorbing at least a quarter of human emissions in an average year.
Authors: Vanessa Haverd, Principal research scientist, CSIRO