There is growing concern about the rise in greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are currently above 410 parts per million —a level unprecedented in the last million years. Major climate change is predicted within the next century.
The increased levels of greenhouse gases have been largely driven by industrialisation, particularly the burning of fossil fuels. However, atmospheric carbon concentrations are also modified by carbon cycling in ecosystems. Wetland soils (peatlands) in particular sequester and store large amounts of carbon. Understanding these systems, and human impacts on the ways they cycle carbon, is therefore important in managing greenhouse-gas concentrations.
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