The immense number of individual salt lakes and saline wetlands in the Great Plains of North America is staggering. Estimates vary from about one million to greater than 10 million. Saline wetlands are saturated with birds. Millions of shorebirds from as far as South America come here to visit or nest each summer. In drought years, much of the shorelines become salt flats. Despite looking like a desert in drought years, these salt lakes are helping remove carbon from the atmosphere instead of releasing it. What’s more, climate change itself is exaggerating the effect.