186 to 192 Billion Tons of Carbon Absorbed by Leafy Greens Since Mid-20th Century

Since the mid-20th century until present day, terrestrial ecosystems across the world have sucked up some 186 to 192 billion tons of carbon, Princeton University researchers argue in a new paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientists say that, all things considered, this helped keep the planet from turning “red-hot.”

Oddly enough, it appears that air pollution caused by cars and various industries is partly to thank for the fact that leafy greens worldwide have been this effective at ridding Earth's atmosphere of carbon emissions.

In their paper, the researchers detail that, starting with the 1860s and up until the 1950s, humans spent most of their time chopping down forests, and thus turned these patches of greenery into carbon emitters.

About 60 years ago, they had a change of heart and started to restore them. Due to the fact that carbon dioxide also acts as a nutrient and that there was plenty of it floating about in the atmosphere, it was about this time that a so-called botanical boom occurred.

The Princeton University researchers say that, had forests remained carbon emitters because of deforestation and logging instead of starting to absorb this compound, they would have produced 65 to 82 billion tons of carbon over the past 60 years.

Add this to the billions of tons released by various industrial practices, and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide would have pretty much gone through the roof.

As explained on the University's website, “That much carbon would have pushed the atmosphere's current carbon dioxide concentration to 485 parts-per-million (ppm) – well past the scientifically accepted threshold of 450 (ppm) at which the Earth's climate could drastically and irreversibly change.”

In case anyone was wondering, current atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is one of 400 ppm.

This means that terrestrial ecosystems have successfully kept the world about one-third of a degree Celsius (roughly a half-degree Fahrenheit) cooler than it would have otherwise got.