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Ancient carbon released through modern rivers

A global analysis reveals that most carbon dioxide emitted by rivers derives not from modern plant material, as was thought, but from ancient, buried carbon.
By
  1. Li Li

    1. Li Li is in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.

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Rivers and streams ‘breathe’ nearly two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, the second-largest carbon flux from an ecosystem after soil respiration1,2. Riverine CO2 has long been thought to derive from atmospheric carbon that had been ‘fixed’ — captured by plants to make biomass — in the past several decades. Such carbon is cycled swiftly into soils as litter and root detritus, broken down by microorganisms into smaller organic fragments and CO2, and ultimately carried by water through the ‘veins’ of the landscape into rivers3–5. But in a paper in Nature, Dean et al.6 show that much of the CO₂ escaping from rivers today comes not from modern biomass, but from carbon that is thousands of years old, or older. This source was thought previously to have been buried in Earth’s deep carbon reservoirs.

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Nature 642, 41-42 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01452-x

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interest

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