TY - JOUR
T1 - Blue carbon gains from glacial retreat along Antarctic fjords
T2 - What should we expect?
AU - Barnes, David K.A.
AU - Sands, Chester J.
AU - Cook, Alison
AU - Howard, Floyd
AU - Roman Gonzalez, Alejandro
AU - Muñoz–Ramirez, Carlos
AU - Retallick, Kate
AU - Scourse, James
AU - Van Landeghem, Katrien
AU - Zwerschke, Nadescha
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
The author was not affiliated to SAMS at the time of publication
Funding Information:
We are grateful to the officers and crew of RRS James Clark Ross and all members of the ICEBERGS NERC–CONICYT project—Proyecto CONICYT-NERC PII20150078" and FONDECYT Postdoctorado 3180331.
PY - 2020/4/17
Y1 - 2020/4/17
N2 - Rising atmospheric CO2 is intensifying climate change but it is also driving global and particularly polar greening. However, most blue carbon sinks (that held by marine organisms) are shrinking, which is important as these are hotspots of genuine carbon sequestration. Polar blue carbon increases with losses of marine ice over high latitude continental shelf areas. Marine ice (sea ice, ice shelf and glacier retreat) losses generate a valuable negative feedback on climate change. Blue carbon change with sea ice and ice shelf losses has been estimated, but not how blue carbon responds to glacier retreat along fjords. We derive a testable estimate of glacier retreat driven blue carbon gains by investigating three fjords in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). We started by multiplying ~40 year mean glacier retreat rates by the number of retreating WAP fjords and their time of exposure. We multiplied this area by regional zoobenthic carbon means from existing datasets to suggest that WAP fjords generate 3,130 tonnes of new zoobenthic carbon per year (t zC/year) and sequester >780 t zC/year. We tested this by capture and analysis of 204 high resolution seabed images along emerging WAP fjords. Biota within these images were identified to density per 13 functional groups. Mean stored carbon per individual was assigned from literature values to give a stored zoobenthic Carbon per area, which was multiplied up by area of fjord exposed over time, which increased the estimate to 4,536 t zC/year. The purpose of this study was to establish a testable estimate of blue carbon change caused by glacier retreat along Antarctic fjords and thus to establish its relative importance compared to polar and other carbon sinks.
AB - Rising atmospheric CO2 is intensifying climate change but it is also driving global and particularly polar greening. However, most blue carbon sinks (that held by marine organisms) are shrinking, which is important as these are hotspots of genuine carbon sequestration. Polar blue carbon increases with losses of marine ice over high latitude continental shelf areas. Marine ice (sea ice, ice shelf and glacier retreat) losses generate a valuable negative feedback on climate change. Blue carbon change with sea ice and ice shelf losses has been estimated, but not how blue carbon responds to glacier retreat along fjords. We derive a testable estimate of glacier retreat driven blue carbon gains by investigating three fjords in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). We started by multiplying ~40 year mean glacier retreat rates by the number of retreating WAP fjords and their time of exposure. We multiplied this area by regional zoobenthic carbon means from existing datasets to suggest that WAP fjords generate 3,130 tonnes of new zoobenthic carbon per year (t zC/year) and sequester >780 t zC/year. We tested this by capture and analysis of 204 high resolution seabed images along emerging WAP fjords. Biota within these images were identified to density per 13 functional groups. Mean stored carbon per individual was assigned from literature values to give a stored zoobenthic Carbon per area, which was multiplied up by area of fjord exposed over time, which increased the estimate to 4,536 t zC/year. The purpose of this study was to establish a testable estimate of blue carbon change caused by glacier retreat along Antarctic fjords and thus to establish its relative importance compared to polar and other carbon sinks.
KW - Blue carbon
KW - climate change
KW - fjord
KW - glacier retreat
KW - sequestration
KW - Southern Ocean
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U2 - 10.1111/gcb.15055
DO - 10.1111/gcb.15055
M3 - Article
C2 - 32108972
AN - SCOPUS:85082764754
SN - 1354-1013
VL - 26
SP - 2750
EP - 2755
JO - Global Change Biology
JF - Global Change Biology
IS - 5
ER -