EVOLUTION Part II: Biological Causes of Global Cooling
Public Talk:
"Global cooling by grassland soils in the geological past and near future".
Abstract:
"Major innovations in the evolution of vegetation such as the Devonian origin of forests created new weathering regimes and soils (Alfisols, Histosols), which increased carbon consumption and sequestration, and ushered in the Permian-Carboniferous Ice Age.
Similarly, global expansion of grasslands and their newly evolved, carbon-rich soils (Mollisols) over the past 30 million years may have induced global cooling and ushered in Pleistocene glaciation. Organisms in such coevolutionary trajectories adapt to each other rather than to their environment, and so can be forces for global change.
Some past farming practices have aided greenhouse gas release. However, modern grassland agroecosystems are a potential carbon sink already under intensive human management, and carbon farming techniques may be useful in curbing anthropogenic global warming".
Last edited by jenny jenny; 09/02/13 04:30 AM.
