A satellite designed to answer one of the biggest remaining questions in climate-change science has fallen into the ocean after a launch failure, the Associated Press reports.
The amount of climate change in the next decades could be much more or much less than currently predicted because of a significant gap in scientists’ knowledge. One of the greatest uncertainties in predicting climate change is what natural mechanisms are involved in capturing carbon dioxide. Currently, on average, half of the carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels is taken up by oceans and plants; it doesn’t remain in the atmosphere, so it doesn’t contribute to global warming. But because scientists don’t know precisely which mechanisms are involved or necessarily how they work, they’re not sure that this will continue.
There are two distinct possibilities. First, the mechanisms could shut down. For example, some argue that the oceans won’t be able to absorb much more carbon dioxide, and may even start releasing some of what they’ve absorbed so far, speeding climate change. On the other hand, other natural mechanisms for absorbing carbon dioxide could actually increase in the future, slowing global warming.
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