By Sid Perkins
The notion that warmer tundra ecosystems will capture additional carbon dioxide—a favorite argument among skeptics of global warming—isn’t supported by new field data.
For more than 20 years, researchers have been adding plant nutrients to patches of tundra near Toolik Lake, Alaska. Since 1981, each square meter of soil in the research plots received 10 grams of nitrogen and 5 g of phosphorous per year, says Michelle C. Mack, an ecologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville.