The second largest mass and surface area is in the world’s land terrains and topsoil. Unfortunately, all existing techniques forcing carbon absorption into terrain are difficult and expensive – by its nature soil is quite inert. There is little promise in increased vegetation, as can be seen in the below table, but land biomes capacity to absorb carbon above ground is very low. This is true in tundra, deserts, shrublands and grasslands, which cover almost the entirety of land biomes. Our research work did uncover some interesting, carbon-related agricultural practices which are quite efficient, but their scalability is highly limited due to lack of suitable arable land, and relatively high cost.

Current carbon storage in the seven land and forest biomes.

World’s biomes: total area, carbon stocks, and annual rainfall (one of the main variables determining growth rates).

Carbon absorption capacity tons/hectare in the world’s biomes