Trees are sucking up just as much, if not more, methane than soil does — the only other known natural sink on Earth. "We've been undervaluing trees for their climate benefits," Vincent Gauci, a professor at the University of Birmingham and the lead author of the study, told Business Insider. Both natural and human-made methane emissions from wetlands, cows, landfills, and burning fossil fuels are on the rise. In a 2017 study, they found that trees in Amazon floodplains emitted more methane than they absorbed. Satellites detect lower methane emissions than what scientists have found on the ground, implying that such "bottom-up" studies either overestimated methane emissions or missed a sink.

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Persons: We've, Vincent Gauci, Gauci Organizations: Service, University of Birmingham, Business, University of Oxford Locations: Brazil, Peru, Panama, Sweden