In Eric Niiler’s piece, “Heating Dirt Could Cause A Runaway Rise in Carbon Emissions” he analyzes the results of a long-term soil study. Starting in 1991, the Harvard Forest of Western Massachusetts has been strung with subterranean electrical wires. These wires, in turn, heated the soil for ecologists to study the impacts of climate change and rising global temperatures. Soil, which contains two to three times more carbon than the atmosphere concerns scientists as they have discovered it releases carbon as it warms.

This carbon-soil feedback loop does not have clear answers as to how much carbon will be released, hence why Jerry Melillo’s created this twenty-six-year long study. He established the idea while traveling in Sweden where he came back to bury six test sites and six control sites. Each test site was raised by nine degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, they discovered that there was a four-phase pattern starting with a loss of carbon from 1991 to 2000 followed by stability from 2001 to 2007. Subsequently, 2008 to 2013 was a period of carbon loss and 2014 started another period of stability. Melillo explains this data as the soil microbes “‘reorganizing’ genetic material to adapt” as soil temperatures change. Through DNA and RNA sequencing, the scientists discovered a number of carbon microbes were consuming and learned that the soil in the test sites had lost seventeen percent of the carbon stores. While seeming like a small amount of carbon, if compared to a large-scale loss of carbon of that size would be equivalent to “200 billion metric tons” or “20 years of fossil fuel carbon” (Niiler).

Interestingly enough, while on my journeys trip to Manitoba, Canada in Churchill they were mutually doing research on rising soil temperatures but on a short-term scale. In their studies, they were analyzing the impact on plant life and animal biodiversity if permafrost melted due to rising global temperatures. I question how in areas such as Massachusetts, where the temperate deciduous forest biome lacks permafrost, will be impacted in regards to vegetation. Will a rise in soil temperatures dramatically influence plant life or just carbon released? Do areas with permafrost experience significantly less carbon releases than other areas and what impact would it make as permafrost is continually lost to the atmospheric carbon levels? Presumably, as permafrost melts, I figure that vegetation will continue to have longer blooming seasons but will soil microbes increase as well? Do soil specific microbes exist in soil in permafrost that is not present in others? Does temperature affect soil microbes significantly at all? In light of this study, only time can tell, but due to the longevity of this study, we can predict more accurate data that will demonstrate the possible future.

(October 2017)

Works Cited

Niiler, Eric. “Heating Dirt Could Cause a Runaway Rise in Carbon Emissions.” Wired, Conde

     Nast, 6 Oct. 2017, www.wired.com/story/soil-atmosphere-feedback-loop/.