Planet Earth has a hidden ticking time bomb that will explode if global temperature rises by one degree Celsius. The ticking time bomb is the deposit of carbon in the soil of the cold regions on Earth. A rise of one degree Celsius in the global temperature will cause the release of carbon that is equivalent to twice the carbon emissions the whole world emits in a year.
Scientists are warning that a one-degree Celsius rise in temperature due to global warming will trigger the release of thirty petagrams of carbon. One pentagram is equivalent to 1,000,000,000,000 kilograms so 30 pentagrams equal to 5.5 trillion kilograms of carbon.
This massive amount of carbon that is expected to be released if the Earth heats up by one degree Celsius is like adding another industrialized country the size of the United States to our planet. This is quite alarming as scientists are expecting a two-degree Celsius rise in global temperature this mid-century.
This shocking revelation is from the recent study spearheaded by Yale University that claims that scientists have been looking in the wrong areas of Earth for soil carbon losses. Previous studies claim that as the planet warms up, the ability of soils to store carbon will be altered. This will lead to a massive release of stored carbon in the soil.
But the scientists have been focused on calculating the soil carbon in temperate regions of the earth. This recent study claims that a large amount of soil carbon is unaccounted for in the colder regions of the planet.
The colder areas of Earth store a massive amount of soil carbon accumulated for thousands of years. This store of massive soil carbon is kept secured by slow microbial activity. As the temperature heats up, the microbial activity increases thus leading to the release of the soil carbon.
In order to prevent a one-degree Celsius rise in global temperature, the UN Environmental Program reports that the annual emissions of carbon dioxide should not exceed by forty-two billion tons. However, the Paris deal also set a 1.5-degree Celsius goal. This goal can only be achieved if the carbon dioxide emissions are cut off by an additional fifteen to seventeen billion tons.
Whenever this alarming event will happen, what is important is to do something about it now. All countries and people on Earth should actively take part in taking care of our environment and to possibly prevent an event like this to ever happen.
