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We add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion. About 40% of this carbon stays in the atmosphere and roughly 30% enters the ocean, and we are not too sure where all the rest goes.
Most scientists thought the remaining carbon was taken up by plants, but measurements show plants don't absorb all of the remaining 30% of carbon we generate.
Lots of theories have been expounded about where the leftover carbon is being stored.
A study published in Geophysical Research Letters suggests some of this carbon may be disappearing underneath the world's deserts – a process exacerbated by irrigation, beginning as recently as 2000 years ago.
When cultivating and irrigating arid/saline lands in arid zones, salts are leached downward. Simultaneously, dissolved inorganic carbon is washed down into the huge saline aquifers underneath vast deserts, forming a large carbon sink or pool.
Researchers studying the Tarim Basin in China, found that around 20 billion metric tons of carbon is stored underneath the desert, dissolved in an aquifer that contains roughly ten times the amount of water held in the Great Lakes.
This is a carbon sink that is not observable in plant or soil, with dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) leached from irrigated arid land and deposited in the saline/alkaline aquifers under bare deserts. For the most part, this is a one way trip for the carbon. No mechanism has been identified for return to the surface or the atmosphere.
More importantly, the DIC goes into an almost untouched pool in saline/alkaline aquifers hidden beneath deserts, which is estimated to be up to 1000 Pg (1,102,311,310 kilotons) globally, large enough to be recognized as the third largest active carbon pool on land.
Such carbon sinks formed during groundwater recharge has been reported before. But never on this scale.
The amount of dissolved inorganic carbon stored is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude higher than previously thought.
(Score: 2) by captain_nifty on Tuesday December 22 2015, @06:32PM
We did this as a class project in a sustainable energy engineering class I took in college, it is a little more complicated than you imply but not a lot.
One thing was it clearly showed that the changes to CO2 levels are most definitely caused by burning fossil fuels, the curves matched pretty well.
It was also truly staggering how much oil/coal has been and is extracted from the ground and burned, the scale is pretty impressive.
That was an interesting class with lots of data/ back of the envelope calculations on energy expenditures and production. Things like "how much ground has to be covered with solar panel to power the country/world?" and "how much wood/biomass would we have to burn to meet existing energy needs?" and some interesting data analysis evaluating site data for solar or wind installations.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday December 22 2015, @06:45PM
That was an interesting class with lots of data/ back of the envelope calculations on energy expenditures and production.
And probably hopelessly out of date by the time you took the class.
The field is changing very rapidly and is full of fudged numbers, false claims, and instructor politics.
Even Germany's going 100% renewable is a big lie these days, as they have built new coal plants and import power to cover the losses due to shutting down their Nukes, all the while ballyhooing a few days in mid summer when some significant portion of power used in highly selective sections of the energy market.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 22 2015, @07:15PM
One thing was it clearly showed that the changes to CO2 levels are most definitely caused by burning fossil fuels, the curves matched pretty well.
You don't need to rely on correlation to prove this point. By measuring the isotpopes of atmospheric CO2 you can determine, empirically, how much was created by fossil fuels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 22 2015, @09:22PM
Exxon's scientists examined old wine to measure the past preponderance of carbon isotopes.
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/16092015/exxon-believed-deep-dive-into-climate-research-would-protect-its-business [insideclimatenews.org]