Glacial Rivers Absorb Carbon Faster Than Rainforests, Scientists Find (theguardian.com) 16
In the turbid, frigid waters roaring from the glaciers of Canada's high Arctic, researchers have made a surprising discovery: for decades, the northern rivers secretly pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate faster than the Amazon rainforest. From a report: The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, flip the conventional understanding of rivers, which are largely viewed as sources of carbon emissions. "It was a total surprise," said Dr Kyra St Pierre, a biologist at the University of British Columbia and lead researcher on the project. "Given what we know about the rivers though ... the findings are intuitive when you think about it. But we were initially very surprised to see what we did." The discovery came from time spent collecting meltwater samples on Ellesmere Island, in Canada's Nunavut territory, where several glaciers flow into Lake Hazen. The team of researchers also gathered samples in the Rocky Mountains and Greenland.
"We have a pretty good understanding of the state of glaciers globally," said St Pierre. "One thing we don't know much about is the meltwaters and what happens when it ... flows into rivers and downstream lakes." In temperate rivers, a bounty of organic material -- plant life and fish -- results in higher levels of decomposition, meaning the bodies of water emit a far greater amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they absorb. But glacial rivers, with their milky appearance and silt-laden composition, are not very hospitable to aquatic life, leading to far less organic decay -- and little carbon output.
"We have a pretty good understanding of the state of glaciers globally," said St Pierre. "One thing we don't know much about is the meltwaters and what happens when it ... flows into rivers and downstream lakes." In temperate rivers, a bounty of organic material -- plant life and fish -- results in higher levels of decomposition, meaning the bodies of water emit a far greater amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they absorb. But glacial rivers, with their milky appearance and silt-laden composition, are not very hospitable to aquatic life, leading to far less organic decay -- and little carbon output.
what can we do? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Adapt. Don't be a conservative stick-in-the-mud -- embrace change and progress.
Code is hard (Score:3)
I'm expected to produce actual value that people would freely exchange the effort of their work for.
I think I want a job where I look at things, and get grants to determine whether they a) release carbon, b) sequester carbon, or c) we don't know, so I need a bigger grant.
Re: (Score:3)
That bit's the easy bit. It's like someone saying "All your code does is make lights change colour on the screen and add a few numbers. So easy a monkey could do it".
That puts you right at the left hand side of the graph on Dunning-Kruger.
Re: (Score:2)
No, I think I'm dumber than you, therefore I'm smarter.
So Dunning-Kruger says. Or maybe that's just logic inverting meme stupidity, as an irrational lightly-obscured "psychologizing" ad hominem.
Re: (Score:3)
No, it's not an ad-hominem. Please get to know what one is.
I'm not saying you're wrong because of some made up reason or insult, I'm saying that your post looked to be woefully lacking in knowledge of the amount of work and background knowledge that goes into proper earth science (i.e. years of math, subject matter, so on, so forth).
Yet you seem to be asserting that it's less difficult than coding (hint, I've done coding/systems for nigh on 40 years and still keep up to date with the current tech), while n
Re: (Score:3)
Actually you can put the science in terms GP can understand. Scientists are measuring the effects of different things so that we get a better understanding of how the entire system works. That's called "testing" in the programming world. Sounds like a waste of time when you could spend all your time programming, but you get a bunch of people to sit around using your system and seeing what happens. What a waste of time, right?
How does he expect us to work out whether any changes we make are helping/not-helpi
Re:Code is hard (Score:4, Insightful)
Continuing, to minimize carbon at the lowest cost, we need to know where the carbon is actually going, so we can work out realistic options. For example, similar research found that organic farming actually emits more carbon per ton of food than food grown with fertilizers and pesticides. If we didn't do *that* research, which is effectively the same type of thing as the current research then we'd be going "i guess that sounds right" when someone claims that organic food is good against global warming. We can measure stuff, or we can go off emotional appeals and hunches.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm expected to produce actual value that people would freely exchange the effort of their work for.
I think I want a job where I look at things, and get grants to determine whether they a) release carbon, b) sequester carbon, or c) we don't know, so I need a bigger grant.
There are a lotof people going after grants and consultation work.
Are you only pissed off at the non-conservative ones?
Re: (Score:2)
I disdain people who want to exchange non-value for value. Conservative or not.
"We're all gonna die" are not a value. And, I'm not going to.
buh (Score:5, Informative)
"It was a total surprise," said Dr Kyra St Pierre, a biologist
...who apparently hasn't studied the rainforest before. We already knew it sequestered very little carbon because of the high rate of decay, which creates anaerobic conditions that do not provide much carbon sequestration.
What is relatively new information (only a few years old) is that mycorrhizal fungi are the real powerhouses behind plant-based carbon sequestration [yale.edu]. And that helps explain the degree to which anaerobic conditions retard CO2 sequestration. It's not just the type of decomposition which occurs in the leaves, it's also the effects on soil diversity.
The Amazon isn't important because of ongoing CO2 sequestration, it's important because of the amount of biomass, and the effects on global warming. It doesn't sequester much carbon, but it does produce cooling effects which we will miss when they're gone.
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I love it when I learn something new, and that's new info to me. :) Thank you!
Re:buh (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a carbon dam. It holds carbon in it's growth, when that growth dies lots of carbon is released, when it regrows it absorbs a lot of carbon ie a carbon dam. If the trees go, so will the carbon stored in the soils down to quite a depth, as mud washed out to sea, the organic material within to rot produce huge volumes of carbon and methane. There as lots of damn on the planet, just chock a block full, of carbon and methane, that they can not store any more is neither here nor there, the risk of them releasing it is very real.
So it is like saying turning deserts into forests will not store carbon because once the forest is fully grown in say fifty years, it wont store much extra carbon any more, completely ignoring the fifty years of growth and carbon build up in soils due to organic breakdown.
Glacial rivers in reality produce a lot of methane and carbon (picking up what ever organic materials flow to it), they just do not do it in the river, they do it when that water reaches the sea, there it breaks down in the depths producing methane hydrates, and when the water gets warm enough the methane hydrates melt and the methane bubbles to the surface.
But do they hold onto it? (Score:2)
The thing is, rivers move water from one place to another. They may start out cold, but they move the water, eventually, to the ocean, were it stops being cold, and where it's already counted as "the level of ocean acidification". So this isn't uncounted CO2 being absorbed. It's "O, I guess this CO2 wasn't absorbed at the ocean surface, but rather in a glacial river".
So, interesting, but not going to change anything. The oceans are already getting less willing to hold onto CO2, and the ocean acidificati
meanwhile ocean acidification (Score:5, Informative)
The glacial rivers don't sequester any carbon, they transport it into the ocean. [yale.edu] As well as freshwater lakes.
Great, now we have a fix (Score:2)
Artificial arctic rivers. CO2 issue solved with wind powered and ocean current powered pumps.