Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
typodupeerror delete not in

+-   A Hidden Loop in the Carbon Cycle Discovered.-> on Wednesday August 06 2008, @08:06AM Googlesaysmysiteisdangerousanditisn't!

Submitted by Googlesaysmysiteisdangerousanditisn't! on Wednesday August 06 2008, @08:06AM
earth
Googlesaysmysiteisdangerousanditisn't! writes "A recent Science article says that researchers in China and the U.S. have found massive carbon uptake in the world's deserts. The effects of this are huge. 35% of the Earth is desert and the uptake equates to 5.2 billion tons of carbon sequestered each year. This is more than half released by humans. These 'dry oceans'- deserts where the grains of sand allow the carbon dioxide to enter its huge surface area and react with alkaline soil to become carbonates. Another scientist suspects that biotic desert crusts, alkaline soils and increased precipitation may be driving the uptake.

From the article: 'Indeed, the high end of the Urumqi CO2 flux estimates are off the charts. "That's more carbon uptake than our fastest growing southern forests. It's a huge number. I find it extremely hard to believe," says Schlesinger, who nonetheless says the Chinese teams methodology looks sound.'"

Link to Original Source
submission

This discussion was created for logged-in users only, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.
Those who can't write, write manuals.