Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 42, Issue 14, Pages 5880-5887Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1002/2015GL064222
Keywords
saline; alkaline land; irrigation; carbon cycle; groundwater; carbon sink; inland basin
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Funding
- Strategic Priority Research Program of China [XDA05030500]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41371200, 41371079]
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For decades, global carbon budget accounting has identified a missing or residual terrestrial sink; i.e., carbon dioxide (CO2) released by anthropogenic activities does not match changes observed in the atmosphere and ocean. We discovered a potentially large carbon sink in the most unlikely place on earth, irrigated saline/alkaline arid land. 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. This finding points to a direct, rapid link between the biological and geochemical carbon cycles in arid lands which may alter the overall spatial pattern of the global carbon budget.
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