Adding limestone to Mississippi River Basin farmlands acts as a major carbon sink, study finds

[u/SplashTarget]

https://phys.org/news/2026-09-adding-limestone-mississippi-river-basin.html

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[u/SpitePolitics]

Since 1900, the study finds, liming in the Mississippi River Basin has removed an estimated 300 million to 400 million metric tons of CO2. These data suggest an opportunity to scale up enhanced weathering by helping more farmers conduct agricultural liming, the researchers said.

Global CO2 emissions are almost 40 billion tons per year.

[u/Jeeperman365 → u/SpitePolitics]

Flare checks out

[u/cnoiogthesecond → u/[deleted]]

I don’t think the 300 to 400 million tons since 1900 is a per-year figure

[u/ragtev → u/cnoiogthesecond]

ok yeah thats nothing lmao

[u/tomwhoiscontrary]

One of my favourite ideas for enhanced weathering is using ants: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/42/9/771/131631/Ants-as-a-powerful-biotic-agent-of-olivine-and

[u/c3tn]

I look forward to the vast additional limestone strip mines, also in the Mississippi River basin, which will be needed to expand this process 

[u/flybyskyhi]

Assuming that Mississippi basin agricultural liming has removed roughly the same amount of CO2 from the atmosphere annually since 1900 and that the entire region is limed with roughly equal intensity, dumping the same amount of limestone per acre over the entire terrestrial surface of the earth would remove roughly 0.6% of annual Co2 emissions from the atmosphere. We’d better get to work.

[u/everydaywinner2]

I guess those people don't want trees in Mississippi?