DRI Scientists Find Deserts Help Reduce Greenhouse G*****
Brian Bahouth
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kunr/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1277445
RENO, NV (2008-05-13) It's well known that forests and foliated places
around the earth absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but
seemingly lifeless deserts were not assumed to be im****tant carbon
sinks, that is until now. DRI scientists Lynn Fenstermaker of Las
Vegas and Jay Arnone of Reno, together with Georg Wohlfahrt of the
University of Innsbruck, Austria have been studying everything from
shrubs to microscopic organisms in California's Mojave desert to see
how much carbon dioxide they consume. DRI's Jay Arnone was surprised
to find the desert absorbed as much carbon per square meter as some
temperate forests.
Arnoe: It was a very big surprise to us. Part of it is just due to the
fact that when you look out at the desert, you don't see huge amounts
of carbon stored in biomass.
Scientists say biological soil crusts - like blue green algae, fungi,
lichens and mosses, account for the absorption. According to Dr.
Arnone, deserts make up one third of the earth's land surface, and
potentially compensate for most of man's greenhouse gas output.
Arnone: If all this land is doing what our Mojave Desert is doing, it
would account for almost all the anthropogenic emissions, the human
caused emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which is
occurring primarily through the combustion of fossil fuels. So
essentially what we're saying is, if we didn't have deserts doing the
things they're doing now, we'd have a rate of increase in carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere that would be almost twice as fast as we're
seeing right now.
The team of scientists recently published their initial findings in
the journal Global Change Biology.
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Joseph R. Darancette
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