Asian Scientist (Aug. 6, 2013) – Top soil is rich in nutrients and carbon but in Australia, it is increasingly being blown away by events such as the ‘Red Dawn’ in Sydney in 2009.
When wind lifts carbon dust into the atmosphere it changes the amount and location of soil carbon. Some carbon falls back to the ground while some leaves Australia or ends up in the ocean.
An international team of experts in wind erosion and dust emission recently calculated the extent of these carbon dust emissions.
“Carbon stored in our soils helps sustain plant growth. Our modelling shows that millions of tonnes of dust and carbon are blowing away, and it is uncertain where all that ends up,” said Dr Adrian Chappell, lead author of the study published in Global Change Biology.
“We need to understand the impact of this dust carbon cycle to develop more accurate national and global estimates of carbon balances and to be able to prepare for life in a changing climate.
According to the researchers, carbon is an essential ingredient for the healthy soils which underpin Australia’s capability to produce enough food to feed 60 million people.
It is necessary to understanding the movement of carbon through the landscape if the quality of soils is to be improved.
This is not an issue for Australia alone. Other countries will also need to know the fate of their wind-blown carbon; countries like the USA and China with larger dust emissions will likely face similar challenges when including wind borne dust in their carbon accounting.
The article can be found at: Chappell et al. (2013) Soil Organic Carbon Dust Emission: An Omitted Global Source Of Atmospheric CO2.
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Source: CSIRO; Photo: J Kemp/CSIRO.
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