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Article: Soil seen as missing sink. (theory that trees absorb carbon dioxide and put it in the ground accounts for missing atmospheric carbon dioxide)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- September 21, 1996
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Over one-quarter of the gas emitted by fossil fuel combustion is missing from the atmosphere, confounding scientists' efforts to model climate change. New findings suggest that some of it may be under our feet.
"Soil is where it's at," says Jeffrey Andrews of Duke University in Durham, N.C. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America last month, he reported that trees take large amounts of carbon dioxide from the air and pump it into the ground. Andrews suggests that the carbon dioxide eventually leaches into groundwater; this prevents it from quickly reentering the atmosphere, where it could exacerbate global warming (SN: 2/13/93, p.100).
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