There's an interesting article over at El Reg, which discusses a new paper in Nature Geosciences on the subject of the reaction of soil bacteria to increases in temperature. The theory is that as temperatures rise, all the microbes in the soil will emit even more carbon dioxide than they do already, exacerbating warming still further.
That's the theory. Unfortunately, an ecologist from California has now rather thrown a spanner in the works by doing some good old-fashioned experiments. Steve Allison has discovered that although small increases in warmth do increase carbon dioxide emissions, as temperatures rise further, the effect tails off quickly and emissions plunge.
Interesting stuff.