Researchers find massive hidden ocean underneath Tarim basin

For instance, one possibility is that if farmers and water managers know the role that inland deserts play in storing carbon, maybe they can alter how much carbon enters the underground reserves, said Michael Allen, a soil ecologist from the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of California-Riverside who was not an author on the new study, in the release. They then measured the amount of carbon dioxide in each water sample, and discovered that it had high concentrations of carbon dioxide – enough that suggested the ground was absorbing about 500 billion pounds of the greenhouse gas each year.

According to commentators, the biggest question now was whether similar “oceans” could also exist under other large deserts, such as Sahara.

Greenhouse gases are continuing to rise as more carbon dioxide is released through industrial processes and deforestation.

The findings could help improve models that are used to predict future climate change.

Although this process of carbon burial occurs naturally, the scientists estimate that the amount of carbon disappearing under the Tarim Desert each year is nearly 12 times higher because of agriculture.

“Our estimate is a conservative figure”.

And the soil of the local farmlands is salty, like the ocean, which dissolves carbon dioxide from the air more readily than fresh water.

The team visited almost 200 different locations across the desert to collect deep, underground water samples. By dating the age of the carbon Li’s team “recorded a jump of “carbon sinking” after the opening of the ancient Silk Road more than two thousand years ago”.

The study’s authors – Dr Yan Li from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography and his colleagues from China and the United States – examined the flow of water through the Tarim Basin, a Venezuela-sized valley in China’s Xinjiang region. (For comparison, 500 billion pounds is about 0.0005% of the amount of carbon dioxide stored in Earth’s oceans.).

Scientists have found that beneath deserts are massive hidden oceans, which could provide hope for fast eroding water resources on the surface.

Li’s team made the discovery by accident while they were looking for carbon sinks, which are certain regions on earth where carbon dioxide could be absorbed.

The researchers estimated that the world’s desert aquifers contain roughly one trillion metric tonnes of carbon-about a quarter more than the amount stored in living plants on land.