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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Pip MooreORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2024. The coastal ocean represents an important global carbon sink and is a focus for interventions to mitigate climate change and meet the Paris Agreement targets while supporting biodiversity and other ecosystem functions. However, the fate of the flux of carbon exported from seaweed forests—the world’s largest coastal vegetated ecosystem—is a key unknown in marine carbon budgets. Here we provide national and global estimates for seaweed-derived particulate carbon export below 200 m depth, which totalled 3–4% of the ocean carbon sink capacity. We characterized export using models of seaweed forest extent, production and decomposition, as well as shelf–open ocean water exchange. On average, 15% of seaweed production is estimated to be exported across the continental shelf, which equates to 56 TgC yr−1 (range: 10–170 TgC yr−1). Using modelled sequestration timescales below 200 m depth, we estimated that each year, 4–44 Tg seaweed-derived carbon could be sequestered for 100 years. Determining the full extent of seaweed carbon sequestration remains challenging, but critical to guide efforts to conserve seaweed forests, which are in decline globally. Our estimate does not include shelf burial and dissolved and refractory carbon pathways; still it highlights a relevant potential contribution of seaweed to natural carbon sinks.
Author(s): Filbee-Dexter K, Pessarrodona A, Pedersen MF, Wernberg T, Duarte CM, Assis J, Bekkby T, Burrows MT, Carlson DF, Gattuso J-P, Gundersen H, Hancke K, Krumhansl KA, Kuwae T, Middelburg JJ, Moore PJ, Queiros AM, Smale DA, Sousa-Pinto I, Suzuki N, Krause-Jensen D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Nature Geoscience
Year: 2024
Volume: 17
Pages: 552-559
Print publication date: 01/06/2024
Online publication date: 22/05/2024
Acceptance date: 05/04/2024
Date deposited: 20/06/2024
ISSN (print): 1752-0894
ISSN (electronic): 1752-0908
Publisher: Springer Nature
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01449-7
DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01449-7
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/ne0v-6h15
Data Access Statement: Data for national and ecoregion area estimates, percentage export, carbon export, NPP, decomposition and other parameters are available in Suppl Data 1. Additional information on uncertainties around parameters and assumptions are provided in Suppl Information. Predictive layers and model outputs of CRT, percentage export data and POC export are available at figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24116973). Areal estimates for floating and sinking seaweed forest were modelled from species occurrence records and stacked distribution estimates that are openly available at figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14496018.v4). Benthic currents and bathymetric data are available from Bio-ORACLE. Source data for net primary productivity models are openly available, and the dataset is described in Scientific Data (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01554-5). Source CRTs are archived at NOAA GFDL (ftp://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov/users/Xiao.Liu/CRT_simulation/GFDL-MOM6-SIS2/).
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