A Hidden Loop In the Carbon Cycle Discovered

Googlesaysmysiteisdangerousanditisn't! writes "A recent article in Science says that researchers in China and the US have found massive carbon uptake in the world's deserts. The effects of this are huge. 35% of the Earth's land surface is desert, and the uptake equates to 5.2 billion tons of carbon sequestered each year. This is more than half of the carbon released by humans. In these 'dry oceans,' the grains of sand allow the carbon dioxide to enter and react with alkaline soil to become carbonates. Another scientist suspects that biotic desert crusts, alkaline soils, and increased precipitation may be driving the uptake."

Comments

So, deserts are good?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Does this mean that all the salinization that has been going due to irrigation because america grows FRUIT in the desert is actually a good thing?

Does this mean that scientists now think that we don't have enough deserts?

I'm all for global warming (it is cold up here in canada), but I'm pretty sure we've got enough desolate landspace...

Not just a joke

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Forests soak up a lot of carbon, but then drop a lot of leaves. When the leaves rot they give off CO2 and methane. Methane is far worse as a green house gas than CO2 - by a factor of over 20.

Re:Not just a joke

[olof_the_viking]

The H2O is a really good greenhouse gas too, you know: http://www.espere.net/Unitedkingdom/water/uk_watervapour.html

Re:Not just a joke

[TapeCutter]

Yes H20 is a GHG, however what many people fail to mention is that the atmosphere is currently saturated with H20, as can be evidenced by dew drops forming in deserts before the sun rises.

In other words, pump as much steam as you like into the atmosphere and all it will do is fall out as rain/dew somewhere else.

Re:At what point does ythis break down?

[demonlapin]

CAFE is crap for really reducing emissions; it gave us the SUV as family vehicle (because station wagons, the former family machine, were subject to CAFE as cars, but SUVs, as light trucks, were not). You want higher fuel efficiency, tax the hell out of gasoline and diesel the way the Europeans do. Simple and easily enforced.

CAFE is just another bureaucratic boondoggle, though it does have the merit that those who can afford larger cars subsidize the purchase of econoboxes.

Re:Not the whole story

[TapeCutter]

Good points. Interestingly there is a lot of Methane bubbling out of the melting permafrost, particularly in E. Siberia. However the last two IPCC forecasts for increased Methane concentrations have failed to materialize, ie: levels have remained relatively stable for a decade after a steadily rising trend a few decades long. I consider the "missing methane" and "collapse of the Artic sea ice" to be the two biggest errors in the IPCC forecasts.

Just a thought but perhaps this new discovery is connected to the "missing methane"?

Re:Not the whole story

[TapeCutter]

Glad you noticed that the errors I chose support different conclusions by different un-scientific groups. An error is an error regardless of which conclusion it supports. Errors do make a model less reliable but they certainly don't make them useless ( as can be witnessed by everyday interaction with the internet ).

The most pessimistic estimates of the (winter) 2007 IPCC report had the summer Artic being "ice free" by around 2050, GHG "alarmists" at the same time were saying ~2030, now 2015 is looking not unreasonable. Last years melt was so dramatic that large shipping companies have been seriously contemplating the feasiblity of opening new shipping routes across the pole. Meanwhile a considerable number of scientists are still looking behind the couch for the missing methane.

Re:Not the whole story

[TapeCutter]

"Meanwhile, the Antarctic ice is growing."

Well yes, it's the middle of winter down here.

Aside from that the Antartic is pretty much behaving as expected ( more snow up high, more melt around the edges ). The one place that is changing rapidly is the Antartic pennisula where temp rises have been three times the global average because of a phenomena known as polar amplification. Polar amplification has been forecast by the models since the 90's.

Even if you think we are not facing serious changes to our climate that could descimate global food production, surely a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels would go a long way to solving some of the other problems you mention. Personally I would like to see all pollution cleaned up but that's not going to happen in my lifetime.