Gently Down the Stream: Carbon’s Journey from Land to Sea and Beyond

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https://eos.org/research-spotlights/gently-down-the-stream-carbons-journey-from-land-to-sea-and-beyond

By Nathaniel Scharping, Eos/AGU.

Excerpt: Movement of carbon from land to ocean and atmosphere plays an important, but understudied, role in the global carbon cycle. Rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs occupy just 1% of Earth’s surface, but they provide a route for large amounts of terrestrial carbon to reach the ocean. Along the journey, carbon dioxide is also released into the atmosphere in a process known as evasion. But much about the land-to-ocean carbon cycle is not yet understood. ...Tian et al. present a global quantification of carbon export and carbon dioxide (CO2) evasion from before the industrial era to the present. Their research indicates that inland waters move nearly half of the carbon absorbed by the land to the atmosphere and oceans. It also reveals significant anthropogenic perturbations to this land-to-ocean carbon cycle. Their work is the first global quantitative assessment of this process, addressing a knowledge gap identified in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report....

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