More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes soil to release the potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide, new research published in this week's edition of Nature reveals. "This feedback to our changing atmosphere means that nature is not as efficient in slowing global warming as we previously thought," said Dr Kees Jan van Groenigen, Research Fellow at the Botany department at the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, and lead author of the study.

Van Groenigen, along with colleagues from Northern Arizona University and the University of Florida, gathered all published research to date from 49 different experiments mostly from North America, Europe and Asia, and conducted in forests, grasslands, wetlands, and agricultural fields, including rice paddies. The common theme in the experiments was that they all measured how extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affects how soils take up or release the gases methane and nitrous oxide.

The first six months of 2010 brought a string of warmest-ever global temperatures, but connecting these dots to long-term climate change patterns remains frustratingly difficult, experts say.  Not only was last month the hottest June ever recorded, it was the fourth consecutive month in which the standing high mark was topped, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Indeed, 2010 has already surpassed 1998 for the most record-breaking months in a calendar year.