Rivers and streams in the United States are releasing substantially more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than previously thought, according to researchers publishing their results in the current issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.
sciencedaily.com
This release is equal to a car burning 40 billion gallons of gasoline, enough to drive back and forth to the moon 3.4 million times.
“These rivers breathe a lot of carbon,” said Butman. “They are a source of carbon dioxide, just like we breathe out carbon dioxide and like smokestacks emit carbon dioxide.
“This has never been systematically estimated from a region as large as the United States.”
