One third of the abiotically-absorbed atmospheric CO2 by the loess soil is conserved in the solid phase

Abstract

It has frequently been noticed that alkaline soils in arid and semiarid areas can absorb atmospheric CO2 abiotically. However, the fate of the absorbed CO2 is largely unknown, limiting our ability to accurately assess the contribution of abiotic CO2 absorption to carbon sequestration. The hypothesis that some abiotically-absorbed carbon could be fixed in the soil solid phase is yet to be explicitly tested. From April to November 2016, we added 13CO2 to the natural alkaline loess soil at a depth of 0–17 cm and quantified the proportion of 13CO2 conserved in the soil solid phase on the central Loess Plateau of China. The results showed that natural surface soil absorbed 13CO2 at a rate of 475.9 mg m−2 d−1. Of the absorbed 13CO2, 33.2% was conserved in the soil solid phase. The rate of added 13CO2 conserved in the solid phase was positively correlated with mean monthly soil water content but negatively correlated with mean monthly soil temperature. Our results indicated that, loess soil can absorb CO2 from the atmosphere through abiotic processes, and part of the abiotically-absorbed CO2 is stably fixed in the soil solid phase. Soil with a higher water content and lower temperature may promote the abiotic CO2 fixation. The rate of CO2 fixation through abiotic processes at the surface soil accounted for approximately 10%-20% of the reported local annual net ecosystem exchange, implying that the abiotic CO2 uptake by loess soil may play an important role in assessing the capacity of CO2 sequestration in these areas.