{"id":404342,"date":"2025-09-23T17:08:59","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T15:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=404342"},"modified":"2025-09-23T17:09:01","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T15:09:01","slug":"earths-natural-co2-vacuum-cleaners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=404342","title":{"rendered":"Earth\u2019s natural CO2 vacuum cleaners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the \u201cgiant sucking sound\u201d department and Utrecht University comes this bit of science saying what most of us already knew \u2013 nature is better at removing CO2 than any man-made scheme. Apologies to Spaceballs \u201cMegaMaid\u201d- Anthony<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natural weathering processes are removing CO2<\/sub> from the air in a wide range of environments across continents and ocean. Until recently these \u2018CO2<\/sub> vacuum cleaners\u2019 were often studied separately, without properly examining their complex interactions. Now, an international team of earth scientists is proposing an integrated vision of the many factors that influence the removal of atmospheric CO2<\/sub> from the highest mountain peaks to the deep ocean floor, including their various interactions. The so-called weathering continuum provides a much more complete picture on what controls and regulates the natural removal of CO2<\/sub>, which could help in the development of enhancing weathering techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The type of rock worn away by wind and water, the chemical reactions that break down rocks and convert them into soils and muds: all of this influences the rate at which CO2<\/sub> is removed naturally from the air and is stored in the soils or the ocean. The efficiency of these CO2<\/sub> vacuum cleaners has varied substantially in the Earth\u2019s past, which had researchers puzzled for over a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Illustration
Overview figure of the weathering continuum, in which processes from the highest mountain to the deep ocean play a role in removing CO2 from the air. Credit: Gerrit Trapp-M\u00fcller et al.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Weathering Continuum<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Viewing the numerous chemical reactions of minerals on land and in the ocean as a single entity \u2013 a weathering continuum \u2013 now emerges from a new research paper, published in Nature Geoscience<\/em>, involving numerous experts from various disciplines. \u201cThe main conclusion from our work is that the various CO2<\/sub> fluxes on land and in the ocean are very closely linked. This governs the efficiency of the removal of CO2<\/sub> from the atmosphere,\u201d says Dr Gerrit Trapp-M\u00fcller, a postdoctoral researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the lead author of the study, which he did when he was still affiliated with Utrecht University.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Aerial
Satellite image of the mouth of the Mackenzie River, Canada\u2019s longest river. It carries large amounts of weathering material to the ocean. The complex processes of weathering can better be considered as a whole. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory\/Jesse Allen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Previous research had already shown that it is possible that the natural weathering processes can practically come to a halt \u2013 and sometimes even reverse, when the ocean starts to emit CO2<\/sub>. \u201cUsing the analogy of the vacuum cleaner, if intense vacuum cleaning has already filled up the device\u2019s storage unit, it eventually becomes less effective in cleaning \u2013 and may even blow out the dust back into your flat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reducing greenhouse effect<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Compared to emissions from human activities, the natural processes that remove CO2<\/sub> are relatively slow. Could this new research help us harness these natural CO2<\/sub> vacuums to reduce the still increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A
The speed at which rocks are converted into soils and other minerals is determined, among other things, by the amount of high mountains and the type of rock that is worn down. Photo: Chavdar Lungov<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u2018Enhanced weathering\u2019 technologies could help to get somewhere close to the 1.5 or 2.0\u00b0C targets of the Paris Agreement, agrees Trapp-M\u00fcller. But he also cautions: \u201cIf weathering accelerates in some place, it can have consequences for the rest of the chain and the net amount of carbon stored.\u201d The weathering continuum warns of unforeseen consequences of enhanced weathering sites, but also provides guidance for how to harness the full potential of these techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gerrit Trapp-M\u00fcller, Jeremy Caves Rugenstein, Daniel J. Conley et al., \u2018Earth\u2019s silicate weathering continuum\u2019, Nature Geoscience<\/em> (2025), https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41561-025-01743-y<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natural weathering processes are removing CO2 from the air in a wide range of environments across continents and ocean. Until recently these \u2018CO2 vacuum cleaners\u2019 were often studied separately, without properly examining their complex interactions. Now, an international team of earth scientists is proposing an integrated vision of the many factors that influence the removal of atmospheric CO2 from the highest mountain peaks to the deep ocean floor, including their various interactions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":404352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"Discover how Earth's natural processes efficiently remove CO2 from the atmosphere, revealing the power of the weathering continuum.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Harnessing Nature's CO2 Vacuum Cleaners: A Weathering Study","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691838250,691829997,691818296,691820492],"class_list":{"0":"post-404342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-co2-vacuum-cleaners","9":"tag-carbon-dioxide-co","10":"tag-greenhouse-effect","11":"tag-paris-agreement","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0Screenshot-2025-09-23-165419.png?fit=1440%2C731&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1HbE","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":336346,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=336346","url_meta":{"origin":404342,"position":0},"title":"Worlds largest vacuum to suck carbon out of the sky (and money out of wallets)","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"13\/07\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The process is called Direct Air Capture (DAC) and supposedly the Mammoth plant achieves something equivalent to taking \u201c8,000 cars off the road\u201d each year, as if that was a useful thing. 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The first, from\u00a0The University of Manchester, reveals that volcanic CO2 emissions could be\u00a0three times higher\u00a0than previously estimated. 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