Abstract
Desertification has been notably expanding in China in the recent decade, especially in North China where dust/sand storm (DSS) frequently assaulted local communities. Analyses in marine ecology found that the earth ecosystem could be able to complement nutrient silicon for keeping sustainable development of marine ecosystem, and decreasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere; as a result, the area of desertification would be enlarged. Modern human being activities have resulted in constant changes in the amount of silicon transport from land into sea, leading to oversupply of nitrogen and phosphorus but silicon in seawater. The proportion of nitrogen, phosphorus and silicon was seriously imbalanced and the limitation of silicon for phytoplankton growth has become more serious. The silicon deficiency has damaged the marine ecosystem in coastal regions and slowed down the carbon sedimentation in the atmosphere of the world. The authors believe that the continual discharge of CO2 into the atmosphere is the cause for the global warming including marine water temperature rise. Consequently, the earth ecosystem would have to trigger its complementary action to resume to the silicon balance by algae bloom in seawater for reducing air and water temperatures. In order to complement nutrient silicon into the sea, the ecosystem would transport silicon via the atmosphere; therefore, the desertification in the inner land is a natural reaction. As marine phytoplankton booming can reduce the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and further ease the green-house effect, during this process, a large amount of silicon are demanded by the ecosystem, which human being are unable to stop desertification from happening but slow down the progress and ease the risk. Therefore, as an important role in earth ecosystem, people should reduce the CO2 discharge into the atmosphere first; then, the normal function of river transporting silicon must be restored. In this way, the CO2 in the atmosphere can be kept in balance, the global warming slowed down, marine ecosystem development sustained, the drought in inner land eased, and the desert gradually under-controlled.
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Funded by the Director’s Foundation of the Beihai Monitoring Center and the State Oceanic Administration and Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX 2-207).
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Yang, D., Wu, J., Chen, S. et al. The teleconnection between marine silicon supply and desertification in China. Chin. J. Ocean. Limnol. 25, 116–122 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-007-0116-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-007-0116-7