Question

If forests serve as important sinks for greenhouse gases, describe how past ice ages might have affected the concentration levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Answer 1

Due to a lack of plants, carbon dioxide levels on earth could have increased, but this would have happened at a very slow rate, due to the scarcity of life on earth during an ice age

Answer 2

If the forests serve as important sinks for greenhouse gases then the past ice ages have affected the concentration levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There might not be much increase in the amount of carbon dioxide at that time because though there were no source of carbon dioxide by cellular respiration. Most of the plant and animal species died at that time so there were not that much increase in the amount of carbon dioxide at ice age.