

Humans accidentally created hidden carbon sink in the desert - gz5
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27971-humans-accidentally-created-hidden-carbon-sink-in-the-desert/

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kefka
I'm not sure I understand how the carbon is being stored here. Is it in the
form of dissolved CO2 that's with the salts dissolved?

And how did humans create this store?

This article seems very light on details.

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InclinedPlane
Agricultural runoff. Some amount of CO2 dissolves in the runoff, then it
enters the aquifer, where it remains. As far as carbon sinks go it's probably
pretty small but it's interesting nonetheless.

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kefka
That makes sense. I was discounting ag runoff as negligable, which I shouldn't
have done.

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rotten
So we are saved and we don't have to worry about global warming any more, nor
even food shortages? All we need is lots of water and to farm in the desert.
Awesome.

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elcct
A little bit of global warming won't hurt. I'd like to have Coconut palms
growing in the UK.

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simonh
Sorry, but the UK gets the crappy end of the global warming stick. Increasing
temperatures melt the Greenland ice sheets, which decreases the salinity of
the north atlantic. That shuts down the processes that drive the gulf stream,
which brings warm water to us and gives us a warmer climate than most regions
at our latitude. So global warming may well end up making the UK colder.

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corin_
Is that actually accepted thinking now/still? I was taught this logic by my
prep. school geography teacher ~15 years ago, but I haven't heard it touted
much lately, so maybe it's no longer the most common expectation?

A (very) little googling didn't bring up that prediction, generally it's
thought that the UK's temperature will indeed rise from global warming. For
example this [1] piece in the Guardian from a couple of years ago suggests
that global warming is likely to lead to wetter winters and more flooding, and
summers that are both dryer and hotter. Similar stuff from a random city
council's website (Bradford)[1].

Obviously the recent anecdotal data also supports rising temperatures (the
five hottest years on record for UK are 1995, 2006, 1990, 2011 and 2014 with
the latter being the hottest, and I think 2015 set to top that), but doesn't
necessarily mean that the ice melting won't cause UK temperatures to drop
again... but the fact that predictions don't seem to take it into account, my
assumption is that either it's plain wrong, or it used to be the commonly
accepted expectation and is no longer, or perhaps it's still expected but over
a larger timeframe than the next 100 years?

[0]
[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/08/potential...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/08/potential-
impacts-climate-change-uk)

[1]
[http://www.bradford.gov.uk/bmdc/the_environment/climate_chan...](http://www.bradford.gov.uk/bmdc/the_environment/climate_change/about_climate_change/how_will_climate_change_affect_UK)

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simonh
I have no idea, thanks for posting the links.

