Hidden ocean found beneath Chinese desert

Many of us have heard the trees and the oceans are a carbon sink which is correct, however, they have just found another place where carbon is stored. A place few lay people would have guessed, IMO.


For several decades, scientists have been searching for about a billion tons of carbon dioxide generated from the burning of fossil fuels.

Of the roughly 11 billion tons of carbon produced each year, it has been estimated that more than 5 billion remains in the atmosphere. Another 3 billion is stored in the oceans. The rest of it, it seems, is sequestered in tropical and northern forests, but there's some -- perhaps a billion tons' worth, perhaps even more -- that can't quite be accounted for.



So Padawan where did it go missing to and how much is stored ?

They guesstimate underground deserts aquifers are storing 14 times more carbon every year than previously thought. The Tarim Desert aquifer may hold over 22 billions tons of recaptured carbon.


"The carbon is stored in these geological structures covered by thick layers of sand, and it may never return to the atmosphere," said Yan Li, a desert biogeochemist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Urumqi, Xinjiang, and lead author on the study. "It is basically a one-way trip."


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