WASHINGTON, D.C. – The world’s deserts may be storing some of the climate-changing carbon dioxide emitted by human activities, a new study suggests. Massive aquifers underneath deserts could hold more carbon than all the plants on land, according to the new research.
Credit: Yan Li
Humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. About 40 percent of this carbon stays in the atmosphere and roughly 30 percent enters the ocean, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Scientists thought the remaining carbon was taken up by plants on land, but measurements show plants don’t absorb all of the leftover carbon. Scientists have been searching for a place on land where the additional carbon is being stored–the so-called “missing carbon sink.”
The new study suggests some of this carbon may be disappearing underneath the world’s deserts – a process exacerbated by irrigation. Scientists examining the flow of water through a Chinese desert found that carbon from the atmosphere is being absorbed by crops, released into the soil and transported underground in groundwater–a process that picked up when farming entered the region 2,000 years ago.
Underground aquifers store the dissolved carbon deep below the desert where it can’t escape back to the atmosphere, according to the new study.
The new study estimates that because of agriculture roughly 14 times more carbon than previously thought could be entering these underground desert aquifers every year. These underground pools that taken together cover an area the size of North America may account for at least a portion of the “missing carbon sink” for which scientists have been searching.
“The carbon is stored in these geological structures covered by thick layers of sand, and it may never return to the atmosphere,” said Yan Li, a desert biogeochemist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Urumqi, Xinjiang, and lead author of the study accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. “It is basically a one-way trip.”
Knowing the locations of carbon sinks could improve models used to predict future climate change and enhance calculations of the Earth’s carbon budget, or the amount of fossil fuels humans can burn without causing major changes in the Earth’s temperature, according to the study’s authors.
Although there are most likely many missing carbon sinks around the world, desert aquifers could be important ones, said Michael Allen, a soil ecologist from the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of California-Riverside who was not an author on the new study.
If farmers and water managers understand the role heavily-irrigated inland deserts play in storing the world’s carbon, they may be able to alter how much carbon enters these underground reserves, he said.
“This means [managers] can take practical steps that could play a role in addressing carbon budgets,” said Allen.
Examining desert water
To find out where deserts tucked away the extra carbon, Li and his colleagues analyzed water samples from the Tarim Basin, a Venezuela-sized valley in China’s Xinjiang region. Water draining from rivers in the surrounding mountains support farms that edge the desert in the center of the basin.
The researchers measured the amount of carbon in each water sample and calculated the age of the carbon to figure out how long the water had been in the ground.
The study shows the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the water doubles as it filters through irrigated fields. The scientists suggest carbon dioxide in the air is taken up by the desert crops. Some of this carbon is released into the soil through the plant’s roots. At the same time, microbes also add carbon dioxide to the soil when they break down sugars in the dirt. In a dry desert, this gas would work its way out of the soil into the air. But on arid farms, the carbon dioxide emitted by the roots and microbes is picked up by irrigation water, according to the new study.
In these dry regions, where water is scarce, farmers over-irrigate their land to protect their crops from salts that are left behind when water used for farming evaporates. Over-irrigating washes these salts, along with carbon dioxide that is dissolved in the water, deeper into the earth, according to the new study.
Although this process of carbon burial occurs naturally, the scientists estimate that the amount of carbon disappearing under the Tarim Desert each year is almost 12 times higher because of agriculture. They found that the amount of carbon entering the desert aquifer in the Tarim Desert jumped around the time the Silk Road, which opened the region to farming, begin to flourish.
After the carbon-rich water flows down into the aquifer near the farms and rivers, it moves sideways toward the middle of the desert, a process that takes roughly 10,000 years.
Any carbon dissolved in the water stays underground as it makes its way through the aquifer to the center of the desert, where it remains for thousands of years, according to the new study.
Estimating carbon storage
Based on the various rates that carbon entered the desert throughout history, the study’s authors estimate 20 billion metric tons (22 billion U.S. tons) of carbon is stored underneath the Tarim Basin desert, dissolved in an aquifer that contains roughly 10 times the amount of water held in the North American Great Lakes.
The study’s authors approximate the world’s desert aquifers contain roughly 1 trillion metric tons (1 trillion U.S. tons) of carbon–about a quarter more than the amount stored in living plants on land.
Li said more information about water movement patterns and carbon measurements from other desert basins are needed to improve the estimate of carbon stored underneath deserts around the globe.
Allen said the new study is “an early foray” into this research area. “It is as much a call for further research as a definitive final answer,” he said.
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“a process exacerbated by irrigation”, e.g. they think this capture of carbon dioxide which, they say later is a “one-way trip” and permanent, is a problem since they use the word “exacerbated”.
And they keep saying “carbon” instead of “carbon dioxide”. Inflammatory prose.
rms,
Quite normal they use “carbon” i.s.o. CO2, as it is only CO2 in the atmosphere. In seawater it is 1% CO2, 90% bicarbonates and 9% carbonates. In plants it is cellulose, starch, sugars, lipids,… In all cases the amount of carbon exchanged is used, as that is the only possible way to make a mass balance…
No, Ferdinand, it is painstakingly clear that they are talking about carbon dioxide, and there is nothing “normal” about them using the word “carbon.” Their use of a “carbon” term is scientific illiteracy (actually, vulgar propaganda), and you are well aware of that.
Read the press release again. Here, let me help you see the bait-and-switch. The study shows the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the water doubles as it filters through irrigated fields. The scientists suggest carbon dioxide in the air is taken up by the desert crops. Some of this carbon is released into the soil through the plant’s roots. At the same time, microbes also add carbon dioxide to the soil when they break down sugars in the dirt. In a dry desert, this gas would work its way out of the soil into the air. But on arid farms, the carbon dioxide emitted by the roots and microbes is picked up by irrigation water, according to the new study.
Alexander, everybody involved in mass balances will use “carbon” and not CO2 as that is the only possible way to follow how the carbon mass is flowing from CO2 in the atmosphere into sugars etc. in plants, back to CO2 outside the roots (as eaten by bacteria) and reformed to bicarbonates in the alkaline irrigation waters.
There is no bad intention here at all, only the best way to make any calculation possible, as no atom can be destroyed or created from nothing, while carbon can be incorporated in a host of other molecules than CO2…
I don’t see any calculations of mass balances in this article.
“Carbon” is just lazy terminology for carbon dioxide. In the ’90s people would buy a “satellite”, a term which was used instead of “satellite dish antenna.” Later people used “cell” instead of “cellular mobile phone.” Both “satellite” and “cell” thus used reversed the underlying technical definitions, but no matter. It is the way of our people.
Just to point out that ‘dissolved inorganic carbon’ (DIC), in units of mgC/L, is a legitimate way of expressing the sum of dissolved carbon dioxide, carbonate, bicarbonate in water treatment/distribution circles, although other units can be used (for example, as CaCO3 or HCO3. Whether the authors of this paper have deliberately chosen to refer to ‘carbon’ for nefarious reasons I’ve no idea, but depending on context it is not necessarily ‘scientific illiteracy’ to do so.
I think they are trying to refer to “CO2 as carbon” but are sloppy in saying so. They are not talking about carbohydrates being dissolved in water. They also use the term “carbon budget” when they mean mass balance. Budget is a financial term, or should we believe that someone sets the “carbon budget?” Climate science gets off into really sloppy terms.
The Tarim Basin is one one of China’s most important oil and gas producing areas and its natural gas is contaminated with a lot of CO2, which presumably has nothing to do with this phenomenon?
That is an interesting observation.
rms, IMO your observation is 100% correct.
As a “spin doctor” myself (i.e Ad, lyrics and marketing writer) I am very careful and often to go to Roget’s to mull over the the words when it comes to nouns, adverbs and adjectives to select one that has the most emotional effect for the maximum impact.
The use of ‘carbon’ (black icky bad stuff to the average reader) vs. carbon dioxide which is a colourless, tasteless benign gas 100% vital to life on earth.
The use of the word carbon is NOT lazy science (CO2 is lazier) or describing the carbon cycle but is patently chosen to have the most negative impact.
The targeted enemy of the warmists IS carbon dioxide.
Could you imaging the Roy Orbison song being titled “Attractive Woman” ? A song penned when lyrics mattered.
Now that would never have made it onto Billboard.
+1
cnxtim, rms and Alexander; you’ve nailed it. All suggestions of ‘sloppiness’ are simplistic imitations of Phill Jones and Manniacal’s absurd claims that communications between scientists are normally full of damning insults, physically impossible relations, harmful suggestions and overly simple language as just replacement for scientific rigor and language.
Sloppy Jones, abusive Manniacal and their buds may have been communicating on the same deep wicked dungeon level about inner circle well known topics, which never seemed to change week to week, month to month; an extremely unlikely situation.
However, the above study purportedly announces to the world ‘exciting new’ knowledge about the water cycle. Information intended to clarify water cycle chemistry.
– The study uses nearly opaque ‘chemical’ language.
– The alleged study is more assumption and confirmation bias than science.
– Alleged science about the water cycle minimize what is actually studied with minimal details.
– Assumptions are paramount with sweeping claims about deep aquifers and time related chemistry.
Bogus science comes to mind. Of course, peer reviewers were scientifically awestruck when approving the paper… NOT!
Or it could be one of those ‘computer model’ generated science papers, never meant to be real science…
It would be interesting to see if hydrogen bombs (SMALL ONES!!) could be used if detonated in the ocean for the purpose of releasing trapped carbon. There is a deuterium connection here that may free up some of the oxygen currently trapped in co2. There could be practical uses for the hydrogen bomb as wellwhen used in conjunction to blasting, building tunnels, etc. This may be a path to investigate.
Sounds to me like China’s getting ready to ask for carbon credits.
And I wonder who is driving the ATV’s ( bottom right hind corner of the otherwise beautiful picture).
Those aren’t ATV tracks. That’s from the Desert Sand Gliding Fish, a very rare species.
Are you talking about Sincus sincus? that is only 8″ long these tracks run parallel and that is not their behavior.
Mongolian Death Worms on their Mating ritual trek?
Sand worms folding space?
“it is as much a call for further research as it is a definitive final answer.” Say what???????????.
If it is a call for further research then it is not a definitive final answer. If is is a definitive final answer then no further research is needed.
Sometimes you just feel sorry for these people.
Eugene WR Gallun
Is there ever any end to speculation?? Can “any speculation” be truthfully equated with “legitimate, scientific theory”??
Yawn, CO2 greens the planet and counters deforestation.
First all the man made heat hides, and now man made CO2 has gone into hiding. It’s AGW hide and seek!
And they didn’t realize that they can also argue that the lack of sea level rise acceleration may be because all that water trapped under the deserts that “may never return to the atmosphere (surface)”
It seems like it is forbiden for environmental scientists to find good news in any of their studies. You may think it is a good thing that so much fresh water is stored in aquifers below the deserts. It shouldn’t be too difficult to pump it and make a good use of it. You can ask Israel about that. Or you may also think that this is a “natural” way of removing the excess of CO2 from the atmosphere (if you think there is a need to do that, anyway), but not, when it comes to CO2, everything is bad, everything is a disadvantage.
The whole AGW scam can be summed up and explained as a game of Where’s Waldo, where searchers are paid to find Waldo based on glimpses… “Hey, I think I just saw Waldo in a desert in China! Give me money so I can go to China and look more closely!” “Oh…Wait! I SAW Waldo in the Arctic!!!…Give me more money…” etc, etc.
This applies to the missing heat in the troposphere, the missing heat in the ocean, and on and on.
Reminds me of an old George Carlin routine where he’s talking about God…”He’s All Knowing, All Powerful, All Seeing….But!…he CAN’T HANDLE MONEY. He ALWAYS NEEDS MONEY.”
Not clear from the article is in what form the carbon is stored in the aquifer: CO2, bicarbonates (is the desert rich in carbonates?), organics? Makes a lot of difference in possible return of it as CO2 from the depths…
“The study shows the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the water doubles as it filters through irrigated fields.”
So apparently, it is in the form of CO2 that is dissolved in irrigation water. But what form does carbon dioxide take after it is dissolved in fresh water? If it remains under the desert for thousands of years, is CO2 released back into the atmosphere again as soon as the water makes its way out?
Normally rainwater and thus surface water is already saturated with CO2 from the atmosphere and is slightly acidic. “CO2” doubling seems only possible to me if the waters contain a lot of carbonates, which forms bicarbonates with dissolved CO2. That is possible as in many deserts there is a lot of carbonate present along the river beds from the uplift of ancient seafloors…
So by the OA proponent’s weird science, that water must be almost like battery acid.
/sarc
As CO2 is absorbed in water it will form carbonic acid, which will then disassociate, allowing for more CO2 to be absorbed. It may be saturated if its warm enough, like on the surface of a warm desert, but as that water enters the ground it cools to 15-18 C and more CO2 can be absorbed. It will also dissolve salts and allow for more CO2 to be absorbed. There is virtually an endless supply of CO2 in organic-rich soils for the water to absorb and will continue to do so as long as there are salts to react with. These are important processes in kart terrains.
They haven’t really discovered anything here that I can tell. They have simply thought to add this dissolved carbon into the equation. The rest of the “missing” carbon is probably in soils themselves.
*karst terrains…
I should also add that it will only keep absorbing CO2 and dissolving salts if the water is recharged, which apparently it is in this case.
the second para begins:
“Humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. About 40 percent of this carbon stays in the atmosphere and roughly 30 percent enters the ocean, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.”
surely that gives the wrong impression that humans are responsible for a whole lot of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. plenty of the people commenting here know the exact figure but, from memory, aren’t humans only adding about 4% of the carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.
whatever the figure is, it should have been mentioned in the sentence as in: “Humans add x% of carbon dioxide”.
it is a cheap CAGW trick to leave the figure out.
@ur momisugly Pat, “Humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. About 40 percent of this carbon stays in the atmosphere and roughly 30 percent enters the ocean, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. “.
You mentioned that humans only add 4 % C02 to the atmosphere, that means that the figure the warmists are so worried about is even less if 30% enters the ocean, now even more ends up in aquifers and trees use some of the rest to produce foods, trees, and 02, am I right?
Yeah, 40% of 4% of a gas that constitutes 0.04% of the atmosphere. And THAT amount my friends is what is causing the oceans to because less basic and inhospitable to corals and dissolves the shells of mollusks and crustaceans. The Briny Deep is very selective of the CO2 she chooses to absorb, she be. Yeah, right.
Come on boys, it is 4% (in fact around 6% nowadays) one-way human addition, the 96% natural input is counterbalanced by 98% natural output, as the huge (mainly seasonal) CO2 cycles are more sink than source…
The remaining 2%/year increase is (near) fully attributable to the human input.
See: http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_origin.html
The yearly increase is closer to ½% than 2%.
If CO2 cycles are more sink than source we’d really be in a world of hurt wouldn’t we?
Mike, it is about 3% of the overall carbon cycle:
– ~9 GtC/year human contribution
– ~60 GtC/season in from the biosphere, ~61 GtC/season out into vegetation (land + sea)
– ~50 GtC/season in from the ocean surface, ~50.5 GtC/season out into the ocean surface
– ~40 GtC/year flowing permanently between equatorial upwelling and ~43 GtC/year down near the poles into the deep oceans.
The human contribution (taxes!) and first two cycles are quite certain, as based on oxygen use/release of the biosphere and the accompanying changes in δ13C at one side and ocean chemistry and ocean surface total carbon measurements at the other side.
The last cycle is the most uncertain part, thus may be overestimated and more distributed into other reservoirs like rivers and aquifers…
The increase in the atmosphere indeed is some 2 ppmv/year or 0.5% of the absolute level…
Tom J,
It is currently more sink than source, because we are far beyond the equilibrium between oceans and atmosphere for the current seawater temperature. Normally the equilibrium would be around 295 ppmv. The 400 ppmv gives extra pressure which pushes more CO2 into the oceans (and plants). If we should stop all emissions, the CO2 levels would slowly fall back to 295 ppmv…
no…you assume ocean temps don’t vary (change) with time. Short-wave solar input changes have impacts on ocean temps, which affects sink- source kinetics.
The biggest fraud perpetrated by the pseudoscience climate change crowd is the selling the belief that prior to man’s burning of fossil fuel, the climate (global temps, CO2 levels level, ocean pH, sulfur aerosols) was in this beautiful state of balance. And that now, our CO2 emissions are sending the climate over the cusp of some hidden tipping point which always (and conveniently) is just over the current time horizon.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
‘The human contribution (taxes!) and first two cycles are quite certain,…’
A few years back I’d agree, but I’m not quite so certain anymore that the numbers are really that accurate. The Chinese government is pretty corrupt and corrupt governments, and the officials they employ, are well known to fudge the numbers. And, the foregoing would certainly apply to Venezuela where I suspect lots of things are kept off the books and disappear while well outputs may be overinflated to keep the powers that be happy. Don’t be surprised if a certain amount of product disappears in less corrupt governments that have high tax. The Black Market in Europe is huge. And, this leads to OPEC where, if the numbers are measured at the source, they simply can’t be trusted: all the countries have been known to cheat on their quotas.
In the end, the unaccounted for human CO2 emissions versus the expected emissions have a huge disparity that still can’t be explained.
joelobryan,
The overall change in equilibrium over the past 800,000 years is 8 ppmv/K. According to Henry’s law the equilibrium between ocean waters and atmosphere is 4-17 ppmv/K in the literature.
Taking some 0.8 K temperature increase since the depth of the LIA, that makes some 6 ppmv CO2 extra. Far from explaining the 110 ppmv total increase (with over 200 ppmv human emissions)…
Tom J,
I agree that the real human emissions are probably far more underestimated than overestimated… That only makes that the (“missing”) natural sinks are larger than calculated as the net result, the increase in the atmosphere is accurately known within +/- 0.2 ppmv.
Carbonic acid is dissolving the submarines!!!
That’s why the military is so concerned!
Man does not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by deforesting.
Deforesting reduces the available carbon sink resulting in less CO2 being sequestered. Whilst Man may be rapidly reducing natural carbon sinks by deforestation, the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is acting as a fertiliser and greening the planet at a rate faster than Man deforests. Hence, overall carbon sinks are increasing.
The expression ‘adding CO2 by deforestation’ is another lazy expression just like claiming that reducing the rate of cooling is warming. These are different processes, and scientifically the correct process and understanding precisely what is going on is important, but not in climate science when loose terminology, confusion and inaccuracy reigns.
Maybe the authors were thinking of burning forests.
pat:
You say
Yes, “that gives the wrong impression that humans are responsible for a whole lot of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”.
Humans input carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. And carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere in an amount approximately equivalent to about 40 percent of the human input to the atmosphere and is entering the oceans in an amount approximately equivalent to about 30 percent of the human input to the atmosphere.
Nobody knows what the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be in the absence of of human input: the increase may be more or less in absence of the human input. As Chapter 2 from Working Group 3 in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (2001) that said
and – to date – there has still not been such a “systematic analysis” because there is not sufficient knowledge of the carbon cycle to enable such analysis.
But there are people who like to pretend – to others and to themselves – that they do know the effect of the human input of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere on the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: they don’t.
Richard
Richard,
Of course, if you eat every day 4200 kJ food and burn some 4100 kJ by biking and living, you wonder why at the end of the year you have a weight gain of a few kg…
If you still think that without human input there would be an increase in CO2 and not a decrease, then you have not the slightest insight of how a physical process works. As long as the CO2 pressure in the atmosphere is above the (weighted) average CO2 pressure in the oceans, CO2 is net going into the oceans. The same for the biosphere, which is thanks to the extra CO2 more sink than source, the earth is greening.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
I refer you to the post by Gregory Lawn in this thread where he demolishes your ludicrous ‘mass balance argument’. Of course, he has an advantage because – being an accountant – he can count.
Richard
As usual Richard you take your wishes for reality.
Gregory did make a mistake, as he didn’t know that the sinks respond to the extra CO2 in the atmosphere above steady state. He assumed that the sinks remained the same in strength, but if there is no increase in the atmosphere, there is no extra sink at all…
See my responses there…
Makes you wonder how much “carbon” (Is that even a thing in a lake?) is trapped in the Rio Hanza and other underground rivers. The Mojave river in California has a stunning amount of water in it, and much of that is underground. I thought the science was settled. ‘Sup wit dat?
Agriculture began near the start of the current interglacial. Maybe today’s near-starvation levels of carbon dioxide were caused by irrigation.
In aggie school around 1973, I took a class in irrigation. Sprinklers are the most wasteful method–and that is the method you see, mile after mile, when travelling thru the American West. Since carbon dioxide is the basis of photosynthesis, these farmers are reducing the carrying capacity of the Earth for life.
Yields can be increased while fixing this, but it ain’t gonna happen while 2/3 of the public believe serious warming is actually happening, carbon DIoxide equals carbon MONoxide, etc. Our lives depend on teaching people what photosynthesis is.
“The scientists suggest carbon dioxide in the air is taken up by the desert crops. Some of this carbon is released into the soil through the plant’s roots.”
I have never heard that before. Does anyone know why plant roots release carbon? Is there a leak? In desert conditions, plants would want to conserve water and not have to open stomata more than necessary to allow carbon dioxide in. So why do plants release carbon through their roots? Wouldn’t they have to take in more CO2 to compensate for the loss?
Louis perhaps you didnt know but grasses for instance when at maximum growth in midsummer with plenty of water put over 50% of their photosynthetic sugars back in to the ground through their roots to feed symbiotic organisms that help the plant feed – all plants do so at greater or lesser amounts
Making it up as they go along now.
Exactly.
Information could be useful to win money on a trivia show, but otherwise just another waste of research money.
Seems like these are geologically new aquifers, just now getting charged. At first look, it does seem that all of them taken together, could show up in the planetary carbon mass balance. I keep in mind that the Chinese do not buy into CAGW at all. (But maybe you would not say that for the people who wrote the press release) So it seems like a straightforward ecology/earth science research project. (Complete with a veiled plea for more funding at the end, some things truly are universal) I do not think I have seen work on a new aquifer getting charged before.
“Underground aquifers store the dissolved carbon”. I didn’t realise that carbon could dissolve in water. I must revisit my chemistry.
I can dissolve salts of many kinds. I can grow salt crystals of many kinds. I can do the same trick with sugar, too.
If you can dissolve carbon, you can grow carbon crystals. A most profitable hobby, I am sure.
Phillip and TonyL, you should both revisit your chemistry.
Of course carbon itself is not soluble in water, but most people with any understanding of chemistry would realise that the meaning is carbon as part of a soluble compound. The term carbon is not a literal one, it is used for the purposes of accounting. Hence the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle and so on.
Have a glass of wine, or a beer, or even a cup of coffee, preferably with sugar in it, and contemplate whether there is carbon dissolved in there, in the form of organic compounds.
@ur momisugly morrie2:
A bit if an inside line, actually.
If you could dissolve elemental carbon in something, you could, in principle, grow diamonds. But carbon will not dissolve in anything to the required concentration. (molten metals being a possible exception)
So the idle dream of benchtop diamond production dies a horrible death.
I do not understand the hostility ,albeit slight, apparent in some responses to this article .
It is available on free open access at the moment from:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064222/full
The abstract summary is clear and actually encouraging .
They point out that some 100gcarbon /m^2/year is being lost from the atmosphere in arid regions , not as biomass or soil carbon , but in saline and alkaline aquifers and that the input rate is increased as a result of human agricultural activity , up to 20gC/m^2/year . Given that there are 24×10^6km^2 area of such activities that means the sequestration of nearly 500×10^12 g C per year.
If you are a AGW believer it will be reassuring to know that there is an anthropogenic negative feedback to the CO2 generated by humans , whilst if you are not you have some ammunition to counter the argument that human activity is destroying the planet.
Win – win for everyone , but especially for the reputation of mainstream science because the article is available to anyone , is clearly written and obviously well researched and it has a nice , human, touch at the end where the authors acknowledge the help of israeli colleagues “to polish the language”.
I was wondering how they were getting all that CO2 dissolved.
“saline and alkaline” explains a lot. Also, water moving through the ground becomes a prime suspect for mineral deposit formation.
Thanks Mike for the link, that makes it clear: the alkaline (carbonates I assume) soils take a lot of CO2 away as bicarbonates when irrigated… As long as the aquifers remain alkaline there is little possibility for CO2 to return to the atmosphere…
“If you are a[n] AGW believer, it will be reassuring to know that there is an anthropogenic negative feedback to the CO2 generated by humans…”
I have to say that I have yet to meet the AGW believer who is reassured by negative feedbacks. Quite the opposite, in fact: negative feedbacks = less catastrophe for the planet and mankind = less funding and less socio-economic-political success for them, and this is precisely how nearly all of them behave.
If catastrophic warming were TRULY their fear (it is not, have no doubt), the zealous opposition to nuclear, fracking, mitigation and other common sense measures would be limited to a hardy band of fringe extremists. Instead, it is par for the CAGW course.
And all of this, by the way, is without even mentioning that they would also be interested in a truly open, honest, results-oriented scientific process. The polar opposite is of course the reality.
With all due respect, and to paraphrase a well known line: I don’t think these AGW believers mean what you think they mean.
“If you are a[n] AGW believer, it will be reassuring to know that there is an anthropogenic negative feedback to the CO2 generated by humans…”
I have to say that I have yet to meet the AGW believer who is reassured by negative feedbacks. Quite the opposite, in fact: negative feedbacks = less catastrophe for the planet and mankind = less funding and less socio-economic-political success for them, and this is precisely how nearly all of them behave.
If catastrophic warming were TRULY their fear (it is not, have no doubt), the zealous opposition to nuclear, fracking, mitigation and other common sense measures would be limited to a hardy band of fringe extremists. Instead, it is par for the CAGW course.
And all of this, by the way, is without even mentioning that they would be interested in a truly open, honest, results-oriented scientific process. The polar opposite is of course the reality.
With all due respect, Mike, and to paraphrase a well known line: I don’t think these AGW believers mean what you think they mean.
Brad Crawford
You are right. The abstract and the paper by Yan Li is well written and the research underneath is highly valuable. It turns out that the problem lies on the article posted here. I don’t know who wrote it, the American Geophysical Union maybe?, but sure it is a poor journalistic piece of work. It does not reflect at all Yan Li and cols’ research.
Yan Li and cols explain in their paper that they are talking about saline/alkaline deserts, and more specifically the Tarim desert, and not all deserts on Earth as the article posted here suggests. The presence of alcaline salts on the soil explains why the aquifers contain more dissolved CO2 than previously expected, something that the article fails to mention. Since CO2 is an acidic substance, it can react with water and form carbonic acid which in turn react with the alkaline material of the desert soil, displacing the equilibrium towards the dissolution of more CO2 in water.
Li’s paper also mentions that the aquifers in Tarim desert cannot be used for irrigation because the water is too saline for plants to handle. Other thing that the article fails to mention.
I can go on but I suggest you read the paper, the article and compare for yourself.
I am appalled by the partisan and biased view this article makes from Li’s research.
Interesting that increased CO2 allows plants to handle far more saline water.
You do recall that when CO2 dissolves into the oceans it is called acidification. It is the same thing when CO2 dissolves into fresh water except we denier pigs call it sparking spring water and sell it for an indecent profit. The truth as they see it is underground lakes are acidifying and my SUV is to blame. Somewhere in the world a group of greenies are putting their story together. They just need a victim – perhaps a rare underground microbe that is at risk, or oases are dying off and our children will never experience a desert oasis.
Oh, God, another assault on human activity as an insult to Nature with the word CARBON attached to it. Come on, get it that Carbon is an essential element in all living things, and the earth is recovering from a CO2 deficiency that almost destroyed plant life altogether. Doubling CO2 in the atmosphere doubles plant growth.
Actually, the baseline seems to be about 200-250ppm.
Below that not much grows except C4 plants.
Its the amount above 200-250ppm that allows plant growth.
Plants exude various organics through the roots into the soil. Some of these like carbohydrates feed soil organisms such as fungi which may in turn channel minerals to the roots. Malate exuded from roots immobilises soluble aluminium, reducing its toxic effect. Some roots are shed directly into the soil where they decompose.
This is a very hostile response to real science. They measured the real world.
It’s not opinion in the form of computer models; it’s observations.
And the discovery of a new carbon sink is interesting.
Why so negative?
I understand your point M Courtney, it is at least real-world investigation. It is the tone of all these studies that create hostility. The (evil) Carbon has been traced and its storage has been “exacerbated” by (evil) man with his agriculture.
The tone is in the head of the reader I think as I get no such feeling when reading it at all. Its very interesting – but to me as an agriculture trained individual not the least bit surprising. Plants do not grow at all easily without carbon sources in the soil to help all the organisms in a healthy balanced soil proliferate. Plants themselves put carbs into the soil to add to the process and fed mitochondria and other beneficial organisms. Many carbon compounds are very soluble especially when exuded from living things and so finding carbon in underground water should be expected, not surprising. Perhaps the progressive increase in recycling this water is adding to the carbon available to the soil and also increasing the ‘greening’ of the planet. Perhaps that is the direction they will look to next.
Just a thought. What is that pond doing there in the first place? The dunes are obviously wind sculpted. As soon an wind blown sand hits the water, it stops, and should fill in the pond in no time. Yet the size of the trees show that the feature is persistent. Seasonal flooding?
Ban that exacerbating agriculture.
Pond is there because there is a slight depression in the ground level, below the level of the water table. Water will accumulate, trees will grow around edges where roots can get down far enough to reach the water. Standard oasis.
Similar report in today’s “The Australian”, page 5, “Scientists ‘too pessimistic’ in carbon predictions.”
This time it is about the Arctic – it starts “Climate scientists have consistently underestimated the capacity of a vast Arctic region to absorb carbon emissions. ” It goes on to say that for 9 leading climate models it was found the region’s emissions were overestimated and the carbon sink was underestimated. Worse, the models did not agree with each other (which looks to me like they are realising at least one, and possible eight, were wrong!). The sink was strengthened by “increased carbon uptake from plant growth outweighing increases in vegetation. Dr Rawlins said this reflected dual factors, both triggered by atmospheric warming.” “Over recent decades, warming has led to a lengthening of the vegetation growing period, which has enhanced sequestration through higher rates of photosynthesis,” he told “The Australian.”
“Researchers blamed the disparity in the models on a lack of data. Northern Eurasia was ‘critically under-sampled’, attracting less field study than other parts of the Arctic.”
So global warming is good for vegetation in the Arctic. Who would have thought it? (resisted temptation to write “Who’dathunkit?”).
Original report in “Biogeosciences”. Obviously editor not scared the Mr Mann.
(resisted temptation to write “Who’dathunkit?”).
No, you didn’t:)
So. These clowns, and every other living being, realizes they are a “carbon” sink? No? Well. Ignorance can be removed through education….stupid is forever.