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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 24 2015, @02:17AM
Huh? It is right above where you are posting. Sorry if it is undeserved, but I am marking you as a troll account. Maybe it is alcohol, reefer, whatever, but the end effect is the same.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday December 24 2015, @03:57AM
Well, OK, if you want to be a troll instead of providing some actual information, it is fine with me! I looked, and cannot see any sources you have provided. The closest was this:
For example, when estimating the amount of carbon in the troposphere they may assume a constant mean troposphere height rather than consider the fact it is about 2x higher at the equator then poles, thus allowing more carbon to be stored at the equator. If they don't do this "constant tropopause" simplification, the calculation must be somewhat more complex. If they do that simplification, the answer will be wrong by a substantial amount (although 30% still seems like a lot, 5-10% is more what I would expect just due to that one but I haven't checked it).
But as I said, i see no citation here only throwing around of words like "troposphere" (god, that's a nice word!) and the idea that that would make the calculation more complex. without the slightest evidence that this would be the case other than your own say-so. Good day, sir! I said, Good day!