We hear a lot about carbon stored in oceans, trees, and of course the atmosphere. But there’s about three billion tons of carbon stored in soils around the world, according to Jonathan Sanderman. He’s a senior scientist and vice president of science at Woodwell Climate Research Center, in Falmouth.
"Geologic deposits are the biggest repository of carbon," Sanderman explained, "then the ocean, then the soil, then the atmosphere, then the trees."
Woodwell is getting an $800,000 federal earmark to develop a dedicated soil carbon research lab. The new lab will be equipped with instruments including an elemental analyzer and an infrared spectrometer. Sanderman said it will allow Woodwell to increase its capacity to measure soil carbon, with the ultimate goal of increasing carbon stores in the soil.
"There's been just an exponential increase in the demand for soil carbon data for all sorts of programs from local Cape initiatives, statewide initiatives, national and international initiatives, especially as people start thinking about using soils as a natural climate solution," Sanderman said.
He estimates plants transfer around 60 billion tons of carbon into the soil every year, which is "essentially chewed away" by microbes and released back onto the atmosphere.
"Because it's so large and so dynamic," he said of the Earth's soil, "that's why we think we can manage the soil for climate benefits, especially because agriculture has generally run down the natural storage of carbon."
Sanderman said managing soil carbon has positive impacts for land uses like grazing and agriculture, as well as the climate.
"Maximizing nature as a climate solution is something we could do easily today and it provides all these co-benefits, more stable production, better production, lots of environmental biodiversity benefits," he said.
