ALMA hints at the existence of an unseen reservoir of diffuse molecular gas in the Galactic bulge

Aims. We aim to understand the unexpected presence of mm-wave molecular absorption at -200 \kms $ $ 1.5 kpc, conventional measures such as the standard CO-\HH\ conversion factor and locally observed N(\hcop)/N(\HH) ratio separately imply that H I and \HH\ contribute about equally to N(H), and the gas-derived N(H) values are in broad agreement with those derived from E(J-K). Within the Galactic bulge at \Rgal $<$ 1.5 kpc, H I contributes less than 10\% of the material inferred from E(J-K), so that the molecular absorption detected here is needed to understand the extinction.