OSU News Research Archive Search an archive of past research stories. Coverage of OSU Research Reports on national news coverage of university research. Reporting on Cancer A reporter's guide to the disease. Who we are and what we do. Ohio - Better management of agricultural lands in the United States could help reclaim the 100 to 300 million tons of carbon that escapes into the atmosphere each year, according to a researcher at Ohio State University.
Carbon is considered one of the key pollutants contributing to global warming.
Agricultural lands, which include crop, pasture and grazing lands, comprise about 42 percent of the total landmass of the United States. In the last 200 years, nearly 5 billion metric tons of carbon has been released into the atmosphere because of land use change, such as plowing, drainage and residue removal in the U.S., said Rattan Lal, a professor of natural resources at Ohio State. Each year, accelerated soil erosion releases about 15 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere in the United States alone. It's far easier in the short run to change land management practices in order to reduce carbon emissions than it is to reclaim carbon from fossil fuels, Lal said. We need to start practicing ways to take it in.