(ORDO NEWS) — It turned out that the peatlands in the Congo are a real “carbon bomb” with a slow action. Climate change can lead to a large-scale disaster. This was stated by scientists after researching this area.
Peatlands in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo cover an area of 17 million hectares.
These are the largest peatlands in all the tropics, and they store a huge amount of carbon. Scientists say this is the equivalent of about three global fossil fuel emissions.
The senior author of the study, as well as a professor from the University of Lindsay in the UK, said that these peatlands are very close to the fact that at any moment billions of tons of carbon can enter the atmosphere. If this happens, the disaster will be global.
Another professor who collected peat samples in the Congo, Cornel Evango, said that peatlands are very vulnerable to any changes in the climate.
Countries that pollute the environment simply do not understand the scale of the problem. They are involved in the fact that the Earth is on the brink of disaster today.
Alert Sudan-Nono holds the post of Minister of Environment of the Republic of Congo and asks the world public to pay attention to this problem.
Forested swamps in the central part of the Congo River basin have accumulated 30 billion metric tons of carbon throughout their existence.
Hydrogen isotopes of plant origin can enter the atmosphere at any time due to the arid climate. A decrease in the groundwater level led to the decomposition of peat.
Further research will be aimed at quantifying the combination of peatlands and droughts caused by anthropogenic carbon emissions. Perhaps scientists will find a way to reverse these processes.
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