Coastal waters play an important role in the carbon cycle by transferring carbon to the open ocean or burying it in wetland soils and ocean sediments, a new study shows.
Coastal waters play an important role in the carbon cycle by transferring carbon to the open ocean or burying it in wetland soils and ocean sediments, a new study shows.
The team, led by Raymond Najjar, professor of oceanography in Penn State's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, constructed the first known carbon budget of the eastern coast of North America from the southern tip of Nova Scotia, Canada, to the southern tip of Florida. They tracked the flows of organic and inorganic carbon into and out of coastal waters.
Cycling of carbon in the open ocean and on land has been the focus of much research, but coastal waters, which border the two areas, have "fallen through the cracks," Najjar said.
"Coastal waters have a whole set of issues that are difficult to grapple with, such as the tides affecting certain areas twice a day, and this has made it difficult to incorporate this area into quantitative models," he said. "We recognized there was a gap there and thought we should develop a carbon budget so we could see what we know and don't know."
Read more at Penn State
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