Here is a new finding I have just come across
Researchers in China, studying the Gubatonggut Desert, have discovered that the desert land absorbs CO2. The research has been confirmed by studies of CO2 absorption in California's Mohave Desert. The oceans and the green forests at night are not the only absorbers of atmospheric CO2. Research over the past several years indicates that the absorption of CO2 into desert land is so great that, if extrapolated to the globe's arid lands as a whole, desert absorption could be pulling in fully half of all CO2 created by fossil fuel burning. The absorption would imply, I think, that most emitted CO2 from fossil fuels is not available to generate, indirectly, global warming; so there can be no one-to-one correlation between increased emission of CO2 from fossil fuel burning and atmospheric warming. (Richard Stone, "Have Desert Researchers Discovered A Hidden Loop in the Carbon Cycle?", Science 320, 12 June 2008, 1409.)
What do you all think I want to know can desserts be sinks for CO2 meaning can they absorb green house gases
your opinions are awaited
| yagnyavalkya wrote: |
| your opinions are awaited |
So is some source material 
The full article requires a subscription to AAAS which I don't have. It would be inappropriate to comment further without reading the full thing, especially when the summary uses words like 'if extrapolated' - a phrase which should raise concerns in any science paper...
http://www.scienceonline.org/cgi/content/summary/320/5882/1409 I think we should resarch more in nuceler power with hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most common molecule in USA, on Earth, in our galaxy and so on.
| eneroth3 wrote: |
| I think we should resarch more in nuceler power with hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most common molecule in USA, on Earth, in our galaxy and so on. |
Err..no it isn't. Elemental hydrogen is pretty rare on Earth (even in the USA). It is certainly the most abundant element in the Universe but on Earth it is normally found in more complex molecules (water, hydrocarbons etc).
Nuclear Fusion is already being actively researched but I don't think there will be any breakthrough in the immediate future (say 10 years or less). | Ankhanu wrote: |
| yagnyavalkya wrote: | | your opinions are awaited |
So is some source material |
I have got the papers ie source materials
But can anybody tell how to attach them in the forum posting
or at least how do I make them available to the readers here
The paper is as follows
Large annual net ecosystem CO2 uptake of a Mojave
Desert ecosystem
GEORG WOHLFAHRT*, LYNN F. FENSTERMAKERw and JOHN A . ARNONE I I I z
*Institut fu¨r O¨ kologie, Universita¨t Innsbruck, Sternwartestr. 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria, wDivision of Earth and Ecosystem
Science, Desert Research Institute, 755 E. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89119, USA, zDivision of Earth and Ecosystem Science,
Desert Research Institute, 2215 Raggio Parkway, Reno, NV 89512, USA
In Global Change Biology (2008) 14, 1475–1487, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01593.xIf it has been published in the scientific journals then I think it would be reasonable, and legal, to link to it via a url since that would come under 'fair use for scientific discussion' under copyright law.
To do that you put it on a web server and simply type the address as a url - just like you would for any hyperlink.
| yagnyavalkya wrote: |
| Research over the past several years indicates that the absorption of CO2 into desert land is so great that, if extrapolated to the globe's arid lands as a whole, desert absorption could be pulling in fully half of all CO2 created by fossil fuel burning. The absorption would imply, I think, that most emitted CO2 from fossil fuels is not available to generate, indirectly, global warming; so there can be no one-to-one correlation between increased emission of CO2 from fossil fuel burning and atmospheric warming. |
I confer this assumption to be irrationally inaccurate!
You are stating that the discovery of a third source of carbon dioxide absorption (other than the functions of photosynthesis and oceanic acidification) implies that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not increased due to the combustion of fossil fuels.
To make this assumption; you MUST either prove that the measured levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are inaccurate at that this third function of absorption has decreased in the rate at which it performs the process.
THE AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE IN OUR ATMOSPHERE HAS BEEN MEASURED UPON SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TO THE MEANS OF SEQUESTRATION.
Atmospheric level of carbon dioxide trend since 1959:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Regards, Jason. | jalockie wrote: |
| yagnyavalkya wrote: | | Research over the past several years indicates that the absorption of CO2 into desert land is so great that, if extrapolated to the globe's arid lands as a whole, desert absorption could be pulling in fully half of all CO2 created by fossil fuel burning. The absorption would imply, I think, that most emitted CO2 from fossil fuels is not available to generate, indirectly, global warming; so there can be no one-to-one correlation between increased emission of CO2 from fossil fuel burning and atmospheric warming. |
I confer this assumption to be irrationally inaccurate!
You are stating that the discovery of a third source of carbon dioxide absorption (other than the functions of photosynthesis and oceanic acidification) implies that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not increased due to the combustion of fossil fuels.
To make this assumption; you MUST either prove that the measured levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are inaccurate at that this third function of absorption has decreased in the rate at which it performs the process.
THE AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE IN OUR ATMOSPHERE HAS BEEN MEASURED UPON SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TO THE MEANS OF SEQUESTRATION.
Atmospheric level of carbon dioxide trend since 1959:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Regards, Jason. |
Actually I am not assuming anything here I am just discussing a scientific discovery please do have a look at this science mag news Item The following is the gist of it "When Li Yan began measuring
carbon dioxide (CO2) in western China’s Gubantonggut Desert in 2005, he thought his equipment had malfunctioned. Li, a plant ecophysiologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography in Urumqi, discovered that his plot was soaking up CO2 at night. His team ruled out the sparse vegetation as the CO2 sink. Li came to a surprising conclusion: The alkaline soil of Gubantonggut is socking away large quantities of CO2 in an inorganic form.
A CO2-gulping desert in a remote corner of China may not be an isolated phenomenon. Halfway around the world, researchers have found that Nevada’s Mojave Desert, square meter for square meter, absorbs about the same amount of CO2 as some temperate forests. The two sets of findings suggest that deserts are unsung players in the global carbon cycle. “Deserts are a larger sink for carbon dioxide than had previously been assumed,” says Lynn Fenstermaker, a remote sensing ecologist at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a co-author of a paper on the Mojave findings published online last April in Global Change Biology" If you want the full text of the GCB paper I will mail it to you please do reply at my mail add from my page
Refs:
1. Have Desert Researchers Discovered A Hidden Loop in the Carbon Cycle? www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 320 13 JUNE 2008
2. WOHLFAHRT et al 2008. Large annual net ecosystem CO2 uptake of a Mojave Desert ecosystem
Global Change Biology (2008) 14, 1475–1487,
THESE JOURNALS DO NOT PUBLISH ASSUMPTIONS!That sounds interesting. I wonder if it has much of an effect in the long term. It's hard for me to imagine that deserts are sequestering much carbon. They could just be absorbing it, and it runs off as bicarbonate when it encounters groundwater or rainwater. Once in solution, it would be subject to equilibration with the atmosphere. Just because deserts are a carbon sink, that doesn't necessarily mean that they can store excess carbon and buffer climate change.
| Gagnar The Unruly wrote: |
| That sounds interesting. I wonder if it has much of an effect in the long term. It's hard for me to imagine that deserts are sequestering much carbon. They could just be absorbing it, and it runs off as bicarbonate when it encounters groundwater or rainwater. Once in solution, it would be subject to equilibration with the atmosphere. Just because deserts are a carbon sink, that doesn't necessarily mean that they can store excess carbon and buffer climate change. |
Actually when you go thru the articles
it seems that BGA or cynobacteria are doing the job | yagnyavalkya wrote: |
| jalockie wrote: | | yagnyavalkya wrote: | | Research over the past several years indicates that the absorption of CO2 into desert land is so great that, if extrapolated to the globe's arid lands as a whole, desert absorption could be pulling in fully half of all CO2 created by fossil fuel burning. The absorption would imply, I think, that most emitted CO2 from fossil fuels is not available to generate, indirectly, global warming; so there can be no one-to-one correlation between increased emission of CO2 from fossil fuel burning and atmospheric warming. |
I confer this assumption to be irrationally inaccurate!
You are stating that the discovery of a third source of carbon dioxide absorption (other than the functions of photosynthesis and oceanic acidification) implies that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not increased due to the combustion of fossil fuels.
To make this assumption; you MUST either prove that the measured levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are inaccurate at that this third function of absorption has decreased in the rate at which it performs the process.
THE AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE IN OUR ATMOSPHERE HAS BEEN MEASURED UPON SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TO THE MEANS OF SEQUESTRATION.
Atmospheric level of carbon dioxide trend since 1959:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Regards, Jason. |
Actually I am not assuming anything here I am just discussing a scientific discovery please do have a look at this science mag news Item The following is the gist of it "When Li Yan began measuring
carbon dioxide (CO2) in western China’s Gubantonggut Desert in 2005, he thought his equipment had malfunctioned. Li, a plant ecophysiologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography in Urumqi, discovered that his plot was soaking up CO2 at night. His team ruled out the sparse vegetation as the CO2 sink. Li came to a surprising conclusion: The alkaline soil of Gubantonggut is socking away large quantities of CO2 in an inorganic form.
A CO2-gulping desert in a remote corner of China may not be an isolated phenomenon. Halfway around the world, researchers have found that Nevada’s Mojave Desert, square meter for square meter, absorbs about the same amount of CO2 as some temperate forests. The two sets of findings suggest that deserts are unsung players in the global carbon cycle. “Deserts are a larger sink for carbon dioxide than had previously been assumed,” says Lynn Fenstermaker, a remote sensing ecologist at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a co-author of a paper on the Mojave findings published online last April in Global Change Biology" If you want the full text of the GCB paper I will mail it to you please do reply at my mail add from my page
Refs:
1. Have Desert Researchers Discovered A Hidden Loop in the Carbon Cycle? www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 320 13 JUNE 2008
2. WOHLFAHRT et al 2008. Large annual net ecosystem CO2 uptake of a Mojave Desert ecosystem
Global Change Biology (2008) 14, 1475–1487,
THESE JOURNALS DO NOT PUBLISH ASSUMPTIONS! |
Very true those journals are quite good and don't make assumptions.
I was just referring to this one:
"The absorption would imply, I think, that most emitted CO2 from fossil fuels is not available to generate, indirectly, global warming; so there can be no one-to-one correlation between increased emission of CO2 from fossil fuel burning and atmospheric warming."
And you are quite right. Its a fascinating discovery I shall read more about.
Thanks for the references."The absorption would imply, I think, that most emitted CO2 from fossil fuels is not available to generate, indirectly, global warming; so there can be no one-to-one correlation between increased emission of CO2 from fossil fuel burning and atmospheric warming."
You point above is quite interesting in fact I too don't subscribe to the point that all the CO2 can be absorbed by desserts and that cannot be a natural mitigation processes in fact the discovery is infant let us see more in the course of time
Thanks for the interest
For those who are interested I shall send a copyof the original article by email
