PARIS: The world’s deserts may be storing some of the climate-changing carbon dioxide emitted by human activities, according to a new study which found that massive aquifers underneath deserts could hold more carbon than all the plants on land. The study estimates that the world’s desert aquifers contain roughly 1 trillion metric tonnes of carbon – about a quarter more than the amount stored in living plants on land.
Humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. About 40 per cent of this carbon stays in the atmosphere and roughly 30 per cent enters the ocean. Scientists believed the remaining carbon was taken up by plants on land, but measurements show plants don’t absorb all of the leftover carbon. Scientists have been searching for a place on land where the additional carbon is being stored – the so-called “missing carbon sink.”
