June 5, 2020
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The extent to which rivers transport burned carbon to oceans—where it can be stored for tens of millennia—is revealed in new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA). The study, published today in Nature Communications, calculates how much burned carbon is being flushed out by rivers and locked up in the oceans. Oceans store a surprising amount of carbon from burned vegetation, for example as a result of wildfires and managed burning. The research team describe it as a natural—if unexpected—quirk of the Earth system.
