Long-Term Carbon Storage in Ganges Basin May Portend Global Warming Worsening

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http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=119889&ct=162

News Release : Long-Term Carbon Storage in Ganges Basin May Portend Global Warming Worsening

November 3, 2011
Media Relations Office
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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 3, 2011
Source: Media Relations

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists have found that carbon is stored in the soils and sediments of the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin for a surprisingly long time, making it likely that global warming could destabilize the pool of carbon there and in similar places on Earth, potentially increasing the rate of CO₂ release into the atmosphere.

The study, published in the current online edition of Nature Geoscience, examined the radiocarbon content of river sediments collected from the Ganges-Brahmaputra system draining the Himalayas. The basin, the scientists say, “represents one of the largest sources of terrestrial biospheric carbon to the ocean.”

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“We thought it was likely that the organic matter there was young,” Galy said. “But what gets exported there sits in the soil for quite some time—3,000 years on average. That’s pretty old.”

That has “big implications for the global carbon cycle,” he said, because “the longer it is stored in the soil, the longer it is kept away from the atmosphere” as CO₂. The buildup of CO₂ in the atmosphere is thought to be largely responsible for global warming.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1293