In the global carbon cycle, soils act as a depository, a place where carbon is stored in a state that does not directly influence the global climate system.
He observed: "The carbon is trapped in the soil because it is taken from the atmosphere by plant material through photosynthesis. Particularly in cold places, it get stored in the soil for a very long time, and this minimises the atmospheric concentrations.
"In the soil, there are microbes and soil animals, as well as plant roots, and they all use that soil carbon for their growth and activity.
"Where it is really cold, the activity and growth is limited but when it warms, and warming is likely to be disproportionately happening in cold areas, then the more active they are set to become."
Dr Crowther said the increased activity by the organisms would mean that they would consume greater volumes of the carbon in the soil, and this would be released as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
"It is very similar to the way we respire and produce carbon dioxide. Because there is such a huge biomass of microbes and soil animals, that respiration really can be massive," he said.
Map of temperature change
One of the latest milestone in the global effort to curb climate change was the Paris Agreement, which was signed at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) summit, known as COP21, in the French capital city in December 2015.
In it, nations agreed to keep the increase of the average global temperature to below 2C (3.6F) of pre-industrialisation levels.
Dr Crowther said that the soil carbon study highlighted the importance of politicians and policymakers to heed the results of scientific studies on the issue of climate change.
"I really do want to get the message across that the strength of feedbacks like this really do stress the need to meet the targets of COP21," he urged.
"The feedback will exist and it will occur even if we do meet these targets but the magnitude of this feedback is going to be minimised hugely and it is really going to dampen the strength of it and it would prevent these enormous losses we expect by the end of the century if greenhouse gases are cut.
"These findings really do reinforce the necessity to meet those targets.