Rivers like Chuya in Russia can be a source of carbon dioxide and methane
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Rivers around the world flee ancient carbon in the atmosphere. The discovery took scientists by surprise and suggests that human activities damage the natural landscape much more than the first thought.
The researchers already knew that Rivers had published carbon dioxide and methane as part of the world carbon cycle – the short -term movement of gases that occurs as living beings develop and decompose. They think they emit about 2 gigatons of this carbon each year.
But when Josh Dean at the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom, and his colleagues decided to determine the age of this carbon, they found that around 60% of emissions from the world river come from stores of thousands of years.
The team used radiocarbon dating to assess the age of carbon and methane freed from more than 700 river segments in 26 countries.
“What really surprised us, when we compiled all the data we could get, it’s up to half [of the carbon being released] This could come from these much older carbon stores, “said Dean.” There is a kind of continuous leak or lateral flow of these older carbon stores. “”
Ancient carbon is trapped in rocks, peat bogs and wetlands. The results suggest that up to 1 gigatrian of it is released into the atmosphere each year through rivers. This means that plants and floors probably remove approximately 1 gigatrian more Co₂ from the atmosphere each year than the first thought, to counter this impact.
“This is the first global synthesis of the former Co₂ of the Rivers of Rivières, which is quite cool,” said Taylor Maavara at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York.
The urgent question is now why rivers release as much ancient carbon. This could be due to climate change and other human activities disturbing the natural landscape, explains Dean, stressing that carbon freed by rivers seems to have “aged” since the 1990s.
“It is possible that we disturb these long-term carbon stores, and therefore, consequently, we see more old carbon coming out by way,” he said.
For example, the increase in temperatures caused by climate change could trigger the release of carbon from the defrosting of permafrost or accelerate the rocky alteration rate. Other activities, such as the drainage of peat bogs or the drying of wetlands, could also contribute. Dean stresses that more work is necessary to determine to what extent human activity stimulates this process and how carbon release changes over time.
This is an urgent research issue, he said. “If we think we store old carbon in these tanks, but we are not, it’s really important to know,” he said. The results will have implications on how nations write their climatic plans, for example, by determining how they rely on the natural landscape to eliminate CO₂ emissions.
“This work raises interesting questions about how and to what extent this old carbon can be managed,” said Scott Tiegs at the University of Oakland in Rochester Hills, Michigan, adding that the minimization of climate change is likely to be important to prevent the release of Co₂ and methane in old stores.
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