Over the last five decades, agriculture has gone through a big shift in crop production.
Boston University assistant professor Josh Gray says we have basically learned how to produce more crop per acre, making production more efficient.
"We know that crops have increased in productivity over this time period and they were in the right place to be influencing this," Gray said in a press statement, according to NSF.gov.
It also seems like an increase in crop production has altered the ecology of the planet, as crops absorb CO2 in the plant respiration process of photosynthesis, during the summer, and then let go of the CO2 they stored when they die in the winter, according to the press release.
This introduction of winter CO2 affects the global season changes.
"We did the math and it turns out-surprising to me-they actually account for a lot of that increase. This is a direct consequence of intensive management of these ecosystems," said Gray. "The still dominant effect with relation to climate change is related to this long-term increase in emissions. Almost everything is related to atmosphere."
Two studies have been conducted to learn more about this phenomenon. It is both good and bad that these studies reach exactly the same conclusion.
University of Maryland atmospheric science professor Ning Zeng feels that both of these studies essentially argue the same thing, just arriving at the same conclusion two different ways.
"Basically, we rely on, to a large degree, a model and atmospheric CO2 observations, and their study (Gray's) analyzed in more detail the specific agricultural change down to specific crop species Underlying our analysis, we did the same thing," said Zeng, according to the release.. "It's very encouraging."
"Changes in the way we manage the land can literally alter the breathing of the biosphere," Zeng added.
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