Rivers help lock carbon from fires into oceans for thousands of years
Wednesday, June 3, 2020 - 11:51
in Earth & Climate
The extent to which rivers transport burned carbon to oceans - where it can be stored for tens of millennia - is revealed in new research. The study calculates how much burned carbon is being flushed out by rivers and locked up in the oceans. Oceans store a surprising amount of carbon from burned vegetation, for example as a result of wildfires and managed burning. The research team describe it as a natural - if unexpected - quirk of the Earth system.