CO2 Seeping Into Water Supply

Nov. 18, 2008 -- Groundwater seems to be taking on carbon dioxide 100 times faster than the atmosphere, according to a new study.

As humans pump billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, the planet is rapidly growing saturated. Water readily dissolves the gas to form an acid, and over the last century Earth's oceans have already been lowered from a pH of 8.1 to 8.0.

Gwen MacPherson of the University of Kansas and a team of researchers have now made an analogous discovery in the groundwater flowing beneath the pristine Konza Prairie in Kansas. From 1991 through 2005, dissolved CO2 levels went up about 20 percent.

"In the atmosphere, CO2 went up 23 parts per million during that time," MacPherson said. "It went up 2,100 ppm in the water, so that's actually quite a lot."

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Ocean acidification is a major threat to corals, clams and any shell-forming animals; as pH declines, the water becomes corrosive and eats away at the creatures' hard exteriors.

Recent experiments designed to test the risks of burying anthropogenic carbon underground have shown that CO2 can turn groundwater into an acid, too. If a reservoir of CO2 were to leak into an aquifer, water that humans rely on for irrigation and drinking water could start leeching heavy metals, benzene, and poisonous gases out of the surrounding rock.