These underground pools, altogether, cover an area about the size of North America, and may account for a portion of the “missing” carbon sink.
Advertisement
While we humans pretty regularly add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through fossil fuel use and deforestation, perhaps 40 percent of this stays in the atmosphere and roughly 30 percent falls into the ocean, says the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, in a release. Although researchers thought the remainder was taken up by plants on land, new measurements reveal that plants don’t absorb all of the leftover carbon. Earlier it was known that oceans and plants store carbon dioxide emitted by human activities.
Scientists have found that beneath deserts are massive hidden oceans, which could provide hope for fast eroding water resources on the surface.
Now, a team comprising of American and Chinese researchers claim that they have found that missing carbon sink, and it exists beneath the deserts across the globe.
Any carbon dissolved in the water makes its way through the aquifer to the centre of the desert, where it remains for thousands of years, the findings showed.
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 suggests some of this carbon may be disappearing underneath the world’s deserts – a process exacerbated by irrigation. The team believes that the aquifers under the deserts might actually be holding more carbon than all the plants on the Earth together. When they compared 200 underground water samples, they found traces of carbon dioxide in the melted water.
The researchers further say that the rate of disappearance of carbon dioxide in Tarin Basin is 12 times higher because of agriculture.
Yan Li, scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Urumqi, Xinjiang and leader of the study, explained that the carbon dioxide is stored in these geological structures that are covered in thick layers of sand. “It is basically a one-way trip”, said Dr Li, who is the lead author on the study.
Advertisement
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 about 10,000 years.
