{
  "id": 11339153,
  "title": "Metal-organic interactions identified as a key factor in carbon cycling, improving predictions under climate change",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/02/metal-organic-interactions-identified-as-a-key-factor-in-carbon",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-10-02T02:20:01.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Phys.org",
    "slug": "phys-org",
    "url": "https://phys.org/news/2026-10-metal-interactions-key-factor-carbon.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A research team led by assistant professor Hirohiko Nagano and doctoral student Yuri Suzuki from the Institute of Science and Technology and Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata University, has found that metal-organic interactions play a crucial role in carbon cycling. Their study, published in Progress in Earth and Planetary Science, reveals that extreme drying and rewetting cycles, which are expected to become more frequent due to climate change, significantly increase CO₂ release from soil. This effect is particularly pronounced in buried humic horizons, which are former surface soils that became buried due to volcanic ash deposition. The researchers observed that the CO₂ release in these buried horizons far exceeded what could be explained by microbial biomass alone, suggesting that these metal-organic complexes may be destabilized during drying-rewetting cycles. This finding supports previous research and could help improve predictions of carbon cycling under climate change, which still has considerable uncertainty. The team now plans to conduct impact assessments and further research on the mechanisms behind the increased CO₂ release in various soils around the world.",
  "summary": "The global annual amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) released through the microbial decomposition of soil organic carbon is estimated to be approximately five times greater than anthropogenic CO₂ emissions, highlighting the importance of understanding how climate change affects soil CO₂ release dynamics.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}