Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) entails using rock dusts (similar to basalt) on croplands to take away Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) from the environment, which is a mandatory step to handle the local weather disaster.
The local weather related impact of enhanced rock weathering on croplands is generally an oblique CDR impact: The ERW idea expects rock-dust handled soils to respirate much less CO₂ again to the environment over the annual seasonal cycle. The quantity of Carbon cycled by way of one sq. meter of cropland over one 12 months is within the order of 750 g C that go out and in. That is rather more carbon than the about 50 g C that we anticipate to maintain within the floor per 12 months by ERW which makes measuring the CDR impact tough.
For the next graph information “for a hypothetical cornfield in a warm temperate region” was taken from Weil & Brady: “The Nature and Properties of Soils” (Field 12.4) and redrawn. Relying on the kind of soil, local weather, crop, irrigation, and farming strategies the numbers can differ extensively, however the primary idea of the Carbon Cycle is identical.
The graph exhibits the annual Carbon Cycle (carbon swimming pools and carbon fluxes) for 1 m² of cropland which grows corn to feed animals. Upon harvest solely the corn seeds are taken from the sphere, the remaining is left on the sphere and tilled in.
