Healthy, undisturbed soil sinks carbon, storing what’s generated when plants and other living things decompose so it doesn’t get released as a planet-warming greenhouse gas.
But a new study out of UC Riverside suggests nitrogen pollution from cars and trucks and power plants might make soil release that carbon in Southern California and other similarly dry places – worsening, rather than helping to fight, climate change.
Dryland ecosystems like ours cover roughly 45% of land on Earth. They also store 33% of the carbon found in the top layer of soil worldwide. So if nitrogen pollution is making the carbon stored in these soils vulnerable, that definitely rings some alarm bells, said Peter Homyak, an environmental sciences professor at UC Riverside who co-authored the study.
