Researchers in a newly conducted study have found that massive aquifers under the earth's deserts could hold more carbon than all the plants on land. Earlier it was known that oceans and plants store carbon dioxide emitted by human activities.

Researchers in the study presented estimates that the world's desert aquifers contain roughly 1 trillion metric tonnes of carbon, which is about a quarter more than the amount stored in living plants on land.

Various human activities contribute heavily for adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. Experts stated that nearly 40% of the carbon released remains in the atmosphere and about 30% enters the oceans.

Scientists earlier believed that the remaining carbon was taken by plants on land, but now the new measurements have shown that plants don't absorb all of the carbon which is left.

Scientists since long have been searching for a place on land where the additional carbon is being stored, which they called as 'missing carbon sink'.

The latest study suggests that some of this carbon may be disappearing underneath the world's deserts, a process exacerbated by irrigation.

Scientists after examining the water flow through a Chinese desert found that carbon from the atmosphere is being absorbed by crops, released into the soil and transported underground in groundwater. This was the same process that picked up when farming entered the region 2,000 years ago, noted researchers.

The new study estimated that because of agriculture every year roughly 14 times more carbon than previously thought could be entering these underground desert aquifers.