As the Great Salt Lake Dries Up, It's Also Emitting Millions of Tons of CO2 48
Scientists say the drying Great Salt Lake in Utah is now becoming a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the climate to warm, according to a new study. From a report: Due largely to water diversions by farmers and Utah's booming population growth, the Great Salt Lake has shrunk by almost half in recent years. Scientists spent seven months in 2020 sampling emissions coming off the dried saline lake bed. Canada's Royal Ontario Museum published the study on Thursday in the journal One Earth. [...]
The researchers found that the drying lake bed emitted 4.1 million tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which would translate to a 7% increase in Utah's human-caused emissions. According to scientists, 4 million tons of CO2 is roughly equivalent to the total annual emissions of 140 commercial planes. The Great Salt Lake is the largest saline lake left in the Western Hemisphere. The study occurred during one of the most notorious dry stretches of the West's mega drought, which had lasted two decades at the time of the study.
The researchers found that the drying lake bed emitted 4.1 million tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which would translate to a 7% increase in Utah's human-caused emissions. According to scientists, 4 million tons of CO2 is roughly equivalent to the total annual emissions of 140 commercial planes. The Great Salt Lake is the largest saline lake left in the Western Hemisphere. The study occurred during one of the most notorious dry stretches of the West's mega drought, which had lasted two decades at the time of the study.
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It's all that damned sea monkey poop
Maybe we need... (Score:2)
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Mormon-O-Matic 9000
Amusing (Score:1)
I find it amusing someone can call this human caused with a straight face.
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I find it amusing someone can call this human caused with a straight face.
No doubt you believe the water us used by penguins? If only the penguins would stop breeding and die off sooner the salt lake would stop drying up? Right?
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I find it amusing someone can call this human caused with a straight face.
No doubt you believe the water us used by penguins? If only the penguins would stop breeding and die off sooner the salt lake would stop drying up? Right?
No doubt Utah just discovered industrial farming in 2023. If only the humans who started eating just last year could have died off before some greedy executive in media needed another yacht paid off with clickbait headlines..
Lies, damned lies and statistics (Score:2)
The cited study,A desiccating saline lake bed is a significant source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions [cell.com] states:
Re:Lies, damned lies and statistics (Score:4, Interesting)
Then NPR picked up on that to create FUD, counting on people not to read the paper.
If you do read the paper the authors put the following three points as highlights right at the start to emphasize them. I don't think that NPR is introducing extra fear, uncertainty, and doubt here.
When lakes dry up, their exposed lake beds become sources of greenhouse gases
Many lakes, such as Great Salt Lake (United States), are drying up because of human actions
High emissions from such lake beds should be assessed with regional carbon budgets
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You said that NPR introduced "FUD". I replied that the authors of the paper presented these conclusions as "Highlights". Are you shifting away from saying that NPR didn't understand the authors' conclusions? You now seem to be implying that the authors themselves are wrong.
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You now seem to be implying that the authors themselves are wrong.
Now you are starting to get it Tim the FUDman.
Why not try looking at data instead of just the highlights?
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Why not try looking at data instead of just the highlights?
I was responding to the original assertion that NPR had misrepresented the conclusions of the paper. I believe that sinij's assertion was wrong, and the NPR summary was in line with the authors' summary. If you want someone to do a detailed analysis of the data and work out what drying lakes are really doing (despite the authors' conclusions) then I'm not your man.
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To me, implications of the linked NPR article are clear - global warming causing lakes everywhere to dry up
Second paragraph of the NPR article [npr.org] :
Due largely to water diversions by farmers and Utah’s booming population growth, the Great Salt Lake has shrunk by almost half in recent years.
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High emissions from such lake beds should be assessed with regional carbon budgets
You try and claim NPR isn’t introducing FUD and yet they reiterate this shit? The hell do you think the insurance executives are thinking right now with this nonsense? Everything from health insurance rates to property taxes are going to increase when people are tying dry lake beds to carbon budget punishments.
Tell me how this particular flavor of environmental FUD isn’t going to turn into a nightmare from an insurance perspective, because greed and FUD. I’ll ring up the folks in Hawaii
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introducing ... they reiterate
If they are reiterating it they probably aren't introducing it. Especially as it's from the "Highlights" the authors themselves chose.
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I don't have the expertise to fully understand the Cell.com article, but any "FUD" is not coming from NPR. The article begins with the following:
Highlights
+ When lakes dry up, their exposed lake beds become sources of greenhouse gases
+ Many lakes, such as Great Salt Lake (United States), are drying up because of human actions
+ High emissions from such lake beds should be assessed with regional carbon budgets
The text you quoted is missing important context. Here's the remainder of the paragraph. Note the last sentence (I added the bold style):
Given these discrepancies, we advise caution when making assumptions regarding GSL offshore aquatic flux rates based on calculated aquatic CO2 concentrations alone. Finally, anthropogenic lake desiccation is associated with increasing salinity in lakes, and may thus exacerbate aquatic CO2 fluxes. In other words, historical aquatic CO2 fluxes across the entire lake may have been lower than contemporary aquatic fluxes. Taken together, we argue that available flux measurements and water chemistry analyses offer relatively low confidence in determining historical and/or contemporary offshore aquatic GHG emissions, making the calculation of future anthropogenic GHG emissions due to ongoing desiccation in offshore sites uncertain. To address this issue, however, it is possible to further consider the underlying drivers of aquatic GHG emissions in GSL.
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Drying sea monkey poop. Gonna get you one way or another.
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So maybe we should drain and fill in all dessicating saline lake beds to avoid releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?
Rhetorical question - What will plants do when they cannot obtain enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to sustain their photosynthesis process?
It goes up and down (Score:2)
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https://sustainabilitymath.org... [sustainabilitymath.org]
Re: It goes up and down (Score:2)
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And since you people won't eat crickets... (Score:2)
We're going to make half of you jump into a solar-powered wood chipper to lower the world's carbon footprint so that we can go on vacation with our nine yacht flotilla.
I'm more worried about the Arsenic & Mercury (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: I'm more worried about the Arsenic & Mercu (Score:2)
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given that the lake has lost about 6000km^2 over the last ~25 years, that's a hell of a lot of concrete
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given that the lake has lost about 6000km^2 over the last ~25 years, that's a hell of a lot of concrete
I don't know, I heard concrete is bad for the environment too. We should probably use asphalt instead. It's waaay healthier and smells better too!
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the Utah government should mix flyash and portland cement and use industrial farming fertilizer spreaders pulled by giant tractors to put a protective layer on the ground because it will harden and prevent dust from blowing off the dry lakebed
I think it's much more cost-effective to refill the lake with water.
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This is claiming that Salt Lake residents will be poisoned by blowing toxic dust from a dry lake bed. Except this hasn't happened and likely won't ever happen. When the lake dries, the drying mud becomes a hard crust that is not effected much by wind. Otherwise the Bonneville Salt Flats would produce horrible salt dust storms, which it doesn't. Now if something disturbs the crust like driving or walking on it, then some of the materials will get airborne, but this is a small amount. ]]
The claim that Sa
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I'm more worried the Mormons will leave and marry all our women.
Carbon Footprint of Dupes? (Score:2)
n/t
all the other 49 states (Score:2)
Drop in the bucket compared to CA (Score:2)
4 million tons of CO2 is roughly equivalent to the total annual emissions of 140 commercial planes.
Meanwhile, in just this year so far, 725,000 acres have burned in California, releasing around 23 million tons of CO2. So that's 6 times more CO2 released in these 8 months in CA than the Salt Lake drying up has released over several years.
In 2020 California wildfires burned 4 million acres and released 127 million tons of CO2, or 31 times more in one single year than the Salt Lake drying up has released over several years.
Just to put things into perspective a bit.
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Sorry, forgot to include my sources.
Wildfires have burned more acres in California this year than in the previous two combined [fox40.com]
A single, devastating California fire season wiped out years of efforts to cut emissions [latimes.com]
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Then fill it with something (Score:2)
Like water or use it as a huge landfill for all the garbage that cannot be exported to Asian anymore.
Problem solved.
let's remember (Score:2)
...that the main reason it's drying up is human inflow diversion, NOT climate change.
Just a reminder.