Extreme weather is limiting the Earth’s ability to store carbon

Despite worldwide concerns about climate change and global warming, carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018. In the United States alone, emissions increased by an estimated 3.4 percent. A new study from Columbia University has quantified the effects of extreme weather events on terrestrial carbon storage, and the results confirm the urgency of lowering carbon emissions. The team set out to understand how variability in the hydrological cycle, which  includes droughts and floods, affects the capacity of the continents to capture and store CO2. …