Agricultural Soil Erosion Is Not Adding to Global Warming

<http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8397>

October 25, 2007

"Agricultural soil erosion is not a source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, according to research published online today (October 25) in the journal Science. The study was carried out by an international team of researchers from UC Davis, the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and the University of Exeter in the U.K.

"'There is still little known about how much carbon exactly is released, versus captured, by different processes in terrestrial ecosystems,' said Johan Six, a professor of agroecology at UC Davis and one of the study's authors. 'We urgently need to quantify this if we are to develop sensible and cost-effective measures to combat climate change.'

"In their new study, the researchers found that erosion acts like a conveyor belt, excavating subsoil, passing it through surface soils and burying it in hollows downhill. During its journey, the soil absorbs carbon from plant material; when the soil is buried, so is the carbon.

"Erosion, therefore, creates what can be described as a "sink" of atmospheric carbon."

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Hmm. To what extent does erosion "create" a sink, or move an existing one?

Lance

For more of the news release, go here

<http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8397>

posted to ClimateConcern