The secret superpower of Brazil’s vast savanna

You’ve heard of the Amazon rainforest, but have you heard of its neighbor, the cerrado? It’s a vast savanna — the most biodiverse in the world — of swaying grasses punctuated by trees. But its most remarkable feature, and its climate superpower, is hidden underground within its wetlands: concentrated carbon known as peat. 

New research suggests that the cerrado is storing far more carbon than anyone realized — six times more, per hectare, than the Amazon’s biomass, with its dense tangle of trees.