Terrestrial plants creating larger carbon sink than expected: study

The world's plant growth is helping to offset the rise in human carbon emissions after researcher found the growth atmospheric carbon dioxide slowed over the past two years.

An international team of researchers led by former Macquarie University researcher Trevor Keenan -- now at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in the United States --found changes in photosynthesis and plant respiration have created a terrestrial carbon sink that's larger than expected.

Released in the journal Nature Communications on Wednesday, the study found the increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide has enhanced photosynthesis -- the uptake of the greenhouse gas by plants -- but a slowdown global temperature rise decreased respiration -- release of carbon dioxide.

"Both factors mean more carbon dioxide has been taken up by plants, thereby slowing the rate of carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere between 2002 and 2014 by approximately 2.2 percent per year," the authors said in a statement.

But the slowdown in atmospheric carbon dioxide growth may only be temporary, the authors warned.

The annual variability of plant growth creates significant year-to-year differences in the rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases, despite carbon dioxide levels increasing since the industrial revolution.

The hiatus period in which global temperatures remained stagnant has also ended following El Nino over 2014 and 2015 that caused widespread drought across the Pacific.

The increased carbon storage by plants will also not resolve the issues of climate change in light of continued increases in carbon dioxide concentrations, the authors said. Endit