Michael Reilly's story from Discovery News presents some more uplifting news. Here are the first few paragraphs:
Groundwater seems to be taking on carbon dioxide 100 times faster than the atmosphere according to a new study.
As humans pump billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, the planet is rapidly growing saturated. Water readily dissolves the gas to form an acid, and over the last century Earth's oceans have already been lowered from a pH of 8.1 to 8.0.
Gwen Macpherson of the University of Kansas and a team of researchers have now made an analogous discovery in the groundwater flowing beneath the pristine Konza Prairie in Kansas. From 1991 through 2005, dissolved CO2 levels went up about 20 percent.
"In the atmosphere, CO2 went up 23 parts per million during that time," Macpherson said. "It went up 2,100 ppm in the water, so that's actually quite a lot."
So what's the big deal? CO2 in water forms carbonic acid (H2CO3), which in turn will hasten the dissolution of assorted minerals, releasing a variety of constituents (heavy metals, etc.) into the water, The water quality will be degraded and could pose hazards to humans and crops alike.
More from the story:
"Most people are worried about CO2 escaping from below and coming up," Yousif Kharaka of the United States Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., said. "If it does, it's going to bring all kinds of things with it."
Looks like the Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.
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