Drying Lakebeds Are Releasing Massive Amounts of Carbon, Study Finds (sciencealert.com) 34
"In many parts of the world, lakes are drying out at a scale so massive that scientists are warning they may be emitting enough greenhouse gases to rival our fossil fuel habit," reports ScienceAlert:
In a new study published in Science, scientists say the Aral Sea — the world's largest desiccated lake — has emitted a whopping 204 megatons (~225 million US tons) of carbon dioxide since it was drained in the 1960s... The study estimates that between 1960 and 2022, the evaporating sea has released 204 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, based on site surveys and core samples collected from across the dry lakebed...
The new study suggests that rehydrating the entire basin could come with enormous benefits to the environment, not just within the sea itself, but at a global level. "There is a hidden carbon treasure beneath the Aral Sea," says biochemist Rafael Marcé from the Spanish National Research Council. "If these sediments remain exposed, carbon will continue to be released into the atmosphere. If the sea is re-flooded, that same carbon could shift from being a source of emissions to becoming part of the climate solution." According to the researchers' calculations, re-flooding the lakebed could prevent the release of the estimated 165 megatons of carbon that remain.
The study also revealed that nearly one-fifth of the Aral Sea's carbon emissions are actually being released as wind blows away sediment on the lakebed, a factor that researchers had not accounted for in the past.
Thanks to Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
The new study suggests that rehydrating the entire basin could come with enormous benefits to the environment, not just within the sea itself, but at a global level. "There is a hidden carbon treasure beneath the Aral Sea," says biochemist Rafael Marcé from the Spanish National Research Council. "If these sediments remain exposed, carbon will continue to be released into the atmosphere. If the sea is re-flooded, that same carbon could shift from being a source of emissions to becoming part of the climate solution." According to the researchers' calculations, re-flooding the lakebed could prevent the release of the estimated 165 megatons of carbon that remain.
The study also revealed that nearly one-fifth of the Aral Sea's carbon emissions are actually being released as wind blows away sediment on the lakebed, a factor that researchers had not accounted for in the past.
Thanks to Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
Warning heeded (Score:5, Funny)
Luckily we are in a time where science and experts are respected and valued, so this will be immediately taken up and acted on.
Re:Warning heeded (Score:5, Insightful)
Thankfully journalists, opinion commentators, and political pundits stick to fact-based reporting; and would never spin an issue with serious global consequences into another ideological identity as part of a false left-right political dichotomy.
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Yup but since it's not man-made carbon emission we are all good doing nothing about it.
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Also methane from melting permafrost. (Score:5, Informative)
Also Arctic Sinkholes [pbs.org] (NOVA: S49E01, 53m) releasing massive amounts of methane as frozen permafrost melts.
Colossal explosions shake a remote corner of the Siberian tundra, leaving behind massive craters. In Alaska, a huge lake erupts with bubbles of inflammable gas. Scientists are discovering that these mystifying phenomena add up to a ticking time bomb, as long-frozen permafrost melts and releases vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Danger! Inflammable! (Score:2)
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Completely off topic, but you gotta love the English language. Inflammable is a perfect synonym for flammable.
Sterling Archer noticed that somewhere along the way. :-)
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Uhhhhhhh (Score:5, Informative)
"Rival our fossil fuel habit."??? 240 megatons is 240 million metric tons... over 62 years. That's an average of about 3.8 million per year. Cars are releasing 3.5 BILLION metric tons per year. That's literally almost 3 orders of magnitude smaller (almost 1000x). In fact, that comes out to 9.6 million per day. Cars release 2.5x the amount in a single DAY than that fucking lakebed does all year. This is a fart in a swimming pool of CO2.
Re:Uhhhhhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
"Rival our fossil fuel habit."??? 240 megatons is 240 million metric tons... over 62 years. That's an average of about 3.8 million per year. Cars are releasing 3.5 BILLION metric tons per year. That's literally almost 3 orders of magnitude smaller (almost 1000x). In fact, that comes out to 9.6 million per day. Cars release 2.5x the amount in a single DAY than that fucking lakebed does all year. This is a fart in a swimming pool of CO2.
To be fair that is just one lake. There are probably more.
Re:Uhhhhhhh (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair that is just one lake. There are probably more.
This. In fact, there are.
The Earth has thousands of lakes, and Google Gemini says about 53% of them have experienced significant water loss in the last 6 decades. So, that would make plausible the claim that drying lakes contribute amounts of greenhouse gas comparable to automobiles.
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What is the way to change this? (Score:1)
We have 70% of the planet's population living in countries which are the largest polluters with little or no enforced environmental regulations.
The remaining 30% have heavy environmental regulations to the point where their economy is stagnant and declining year over year.
How do we get the largest polluting countries, not the per-capita basis nonsense, to reduce their country's total pollution?
50 years of environmental agreements and regulations adhered to by West Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Jap
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the largest polluting countries, China, India, Pakistan, Brasil, Indonesia,
Of all those countries. Only one of them is even actually a bigger polluter than America. Who you just claimed had "already done their part"
Why do you retarded people even bother typing your nonsense?
The only country worse than America also has 4x as many people and makes all your stuff for you. Pull your head out of your ass.
Why sign hurt your citizens and economy agreement? (Score:2)
50 years of the US, West Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Japan signing treaties and international agreements to hurt their economy and citizen's economic future.
Asking, and using trade policies to encourage the rest of the world with its 75% of the global population to reduce their pollution and environmental destruction is a good thing.
Guess what (Score:1)
It doesn't matter.
Quick, rake the sand! (Score:1)
- Stable Genius
W H O P P I N G ?? (Score:2)
Sure, 204 Mtonne (Tg) sounds big, but over 60+ years, it isn't, only 930 tonne/day. About 2 kBpd, not that it matters because CO2 is spectrographically saturated on the physically-dictated absorbtion wavenumbers. More only reduces the altitude.
Dry peat bogs emit a magnitude more (Score:1)
If you normalize and average the carbon emissions of the whole Aral Sea to tonnes of carbon per year and sqm over the whole time, you get sometihing like 13 tonnes / year / sqm.
But compare that to what a dried out peat bogs emits - around 246 tonnes / year / km^2 [1] - one should become humble and try to protext existing and re-wet dry peat bogs.
Yes, refilling the Aral Sea must be a goal, but we must not ignore other lever we have.
1. https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
What fresh hell is this? (Score:2)
Clickbait headline talks about drying lake beds (plural). Actual study talks about only a single lake that was drained in the 1960s.
For those who actually care (Score:2)
Copy and paste that any time someone points out some hyper-specific bullshit from nature.