A new study recently published in the international journal One Earth suggests that dried up salt lakes are a neglected and potentially important source of greenhouse gases. The phenomenon of salt lake drying up is very common, usually caused by water extraction for agricultural, industrial, and municipal purposes, but its impact on greenhouse gas emissions is still unclear. Researchers from institutions such as the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany and the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada measured carbon dioxide and methane emissions from exposed sediments in the Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA from April to November 2020. According to the sampling calculation results, in 2020, the Great Salt Lake bed emitted approximately 4.1 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, of which 94% were carbon dioxide, resulting in an increase of approximately 7% in Utah's greenhouse gas emissions that year. Researchers also measured greenhouse gas emissions near the shore of lakes and analyzed the collected data to confirm that salt lakes release almost no greenhouse gases before drying up, and the dried up salt lake beds are a source of increased greenhouse gas emissions. Tobias Goldhammer, a researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries who participated in the study, said, "When the evaporation of salt lakes increases, the concentration of salt will rise, which will change the dissolution balance of gases such as carbon dioxide, because carbon dioxide is more difficult to dissolve in water with high salt content. What is particularly surprising is that even at sampling points that have been dry for a long time, the release of carbon dioxide is still significant." The researchers emphasized that climate change makes arid areas even drier, and the drying up of rivers and lakes in turn exacerbates climate change, forming a vicious cycle. In the future, when planning climate change mitigation measures and managing water resources, the factor of lake drying up should be considered. (New Society)