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Reversing Carbon Loss
Tue Mar 30, 2004
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is The Weather Notebook's weekly segment on Global Climate
Change. Today, Correspondent Curt Nickisch explains how croplands contribute greenhouse gases
to the atmosphere and how scientists are working with farmers to reverse the process.
CN: When pioneers first plowed the prairie, they exposed some of the best quality soil in the
world to the air. That allowed dead plant material there to rot and release carbon dioxide,
the most prevalent gas scientists now believe responsible for global warming. Over the years,
the amount of soil carbon in the Great Plains dropped 25 percent. That's a trend South Dakota
State University's Jim Doolittle wants to reverse.
JD: This is the soil chemistry lab.
CN: Doolittle points to the machine here that gets the most use:
JD: It measures carbon, nitrogen and sulfur, using a dry combustion furnace. That is allowing
us to track carbon in our soil samples...
CN: Plant scientists have always been interested in monitoring the organic carbon content of
the soil: a higher amount means better quality. But now their research could be used to make
sure cropland doesn't make global warming any worse.
JD: It's beneficial not only to improve soil quality by increasing organic matter, but also
we're sequestering carbon for the global carbon budget.
CN: Keeping carbon in the soil would minimize agriculture's contribution of CO2 to the
atmosphere. What's more, Doolittle says farmers could even add carbon to the soil by not
tilling as much or planting crops to cover the ground through the winter - reversing the trend
of the last century and a half.
In Brookings, South Dakota, this is Curt Nickisch.
The Weather Notebook is produced by the Mount Washington Observatory, with support from the
National Science Foundation and Subaru - Driven By What's Inside.
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