CO2 and the reduction of available biomass

Before any research was done on this topic, the group felt that the increase in fossil fuel burning has far outpaced the reduction of available biomass sinks (or sources that take CO2 out of the atmosphere). 

It turns out that the evidence gathers confirms our hypothesis.  While deforestation definitely has an effect on the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.  Humans are simply burning fossil fuels at a much higher rate than deforestation is occurring.  The graph below shows how the trends are occurring over the last 50 years (1).


As you can see, emissions from fossil fuel use has increased dramatically, while emissions due to land use change have remained relatively steady.

(1)http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/09/hl-full.htm#naturalSinks