The carbon dioxide output of these cold-weather fungi is important because they come from regions that are responsible for 30 percent of the world's carbon output from soil. Left to live out their natural lives the shrooms would emit quite a bit of carbon dioxide — and scientists had previously thought they'd emit even more after dying.

To find out for sure, ecology researchers compared the carbon dioxide output of fungi in two different greenhouses: One at traditional, chilly temperatures, and one warmed by the 5 degrees that experts predict will result from climate change. Once the mushrooms warmed up, they died and significantly cut down on the overall carbon dioxide output of the forest biosphere.

In the study, published today in Global Change Biology, the authors write that "soil in warmed greenhouses produced about half as much carbon dioxide as soil in cooler control plots." So that means some of nature's biggest carbon dioxide factories might cut their production in half once the planet starts heating up.

Evolutionary biologist and co-author of the study Kathleen Treseder said:

It's fortuitous for humans that the fungi are negatively affected by this warming. It's not so great for the fungi, but might help offset a little bit of the carbon dioxide we are putting directly into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.

So killing little bits of the Earth might save the Earth?

Source: Global Change Biology

Alaskan mushroom image via The Road is Life.

Latham explains that it's all about making clouds more reflective. When the salt spray gets taken up into the clouds, the salt crystals allow more drops of water to form. And a cloud with more water in it can reflect more sunlight. Ultimately, Latham hopes, this means that less sunlight will reach Earth and allow the oceans to cool down. If his plan were put into practice right away, it's possible we could prevent the Arctic ice sheet from breaking up, and keep those giant ice shelves from crumbling in Antarctica. As the cooled ocean currents circulate throughout the world, global temperatures will lower too.

According to Physics World:

Latham maintains that his group’s idea is not pie in the sky and that its feasibility is supported by two of the world’s leading computer climate models, as well as recently obtained experimental cloud data. He points out that, unlike rival techniques, the system could be used to vary the degree of cooling as required and could be switched off instantaneously if needed. However, he adds more research must be done to find out a number of unknowns — such as exactly what fraction of spray droplets will reach the clouds — and to establish that the technique would not create any harmful climatic side effects. More work must also be done on the spray technology, he says.

Before you get excited, futurist Jamais Cascio, who writes a lot about geoengineering, has some words of warning:

A couple of really important factors, worth keeping in mind when evaluating these kinds of proposals:

1) Albedo-changing geoengineering (like the water spray, or stratospheric sulphate particles) is a symptom-reduction treatment, not a cause-reduction treatment. This means that if you stop the geoengineering — and you haven't been reducing carbon outputs — all of the heat comes back, and there's even a "bounce" effect where it can get warmer faster than it would have otherwise.

2) Geoengineering of this sort does nothing about carbon, but excess carbon does more than just warm the air. Ocean acidification is probably the biggest problem, causing coral extinctions, diatom extinctions (HUGE foodchain implications), and similar nastiness.

Geoengineering is useful if it's coupled with carbon-reduction, since it can slow the onset of some of the warming-related catastrophes. It's not a cure or a solution for global warming, though. It's a cough-suppressant — can be ideal for letting you sleep and get rid of your flu, but can make the flu stick around longer if all you do is use it to get through a work day.

Cloud-Seeding Ships Could Combat Climate Change [via Physics World] Thanks, Ethan!

Don't expect giant machines that can purify the atmosphere or nanotech that can reverse global warming just yet. The U.S. government has yet to approve the fledgling agency which would unify several independent researchers and university labs with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Basically, it would be an Earth-monitoring super-group whose goals are to research and solve humanity's crimes against the biosphere.

USGS director Charles Grote, who is helping to put the group together, isn't quite as grandiose when explaining the ESSA's mission:

The USGS, in bringing not only its geologic, biologic, hydrologic and geospatial expertise to the understanding of natural systems, but also its research capabilities in energy, mineral, water, and biologic resources, gives the new organization a comprehensive perspective on both environmental and resource systems. If we effectively link these capabilities with those of NOAA, we will have a powerful research institution

But David Rejeski, former member of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is thinking bigger:

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demonstrated the value of funding high-risk, high-reward research and development. ESSA should foster similar ventures in the environmental arena.

Given the kinds of projects that have come out of DARPA, including the internet and swarm robots, Rejeski is clearly hoping for giant robots who can cool down the oceans or clean up chemical spills. That's what we're hoping for too.

Earth Systems Science Agency, we have a planetary emergency! Help us before it's too late!

Image from Earth Sons.

Organizing an Earth Systems Science Agency [Nature via Eurekalert]