III - Uncovering novel polar blue carbon ecosystems
We will contribute evidence about whether primary marine producers can help offset CO2 emissions and make specific suggestions for marine protected areas, especially in the Arctic.
Mikael Sejr, POMP project coordinator
Climate change is altering Arctic and Antarctic regions faster than the global average. As these areas are pivotal to the global climate system, this accelerates an environmental feedback loop. Critically, a warmer climate results in the loss of ice cover, in turn changing the polar oceans’ ecosystems. “To understand the longer-term consequences, we need to know how ice loss alters marine ecosystems’ structure, biodiversitybiodiversitymeasure of the number and variety of different organisms (including plants, animals, fungi and microbes) that are present in a habitat. Environmental degradation typically leads to a fall in biodiversity. and capacity to take up CO2, slowing climate change,” says Mikael Sejr from Aarhus University’s Department of Ecoscience(opens in new window) in Denmark, and project coordinator of the POMP(opens in new window) project. Sejr and his team will compile existing knowledge of the distribution of carbon-and biodiversity-rich habitats, and the expected impact of continued warming. While synthesising knowledge of both Arctic and Antarctic oceanic changes is challenging, POMP’s partners bring a strong track record of polar research in Europe, Canada and Greenland, yielding extensive data, much collected at sites which have long been documenting climate change impacts. Once collated, this local data will be combined with remote sensing data to train coastal and global ocean ecosystemecosystemdescribes a community of living organisms, their non-living environment, and the interactions within and between them. The boundaries of an ecosystem can change over time, and the scale of an ecosystem ranges from the microscopic to the entire planet. models. “These models will study how different marine ecosystems have responded to changes in sea ice, glaciers and snow cover over the last 20-30 years, as well as forecast the likely impacts on future carbon fixation, storage and sequestrationsequestrationis the process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it long term. This happens naturally through processes such as plant growth. Choices in how an ecosystem is managed can increase or decrease the rate of its carbon sequestration.,” explains Sejr. The team are initially focusing on fixation by primary producers or plants, followed by storage (such as living biomassbiomassis physical matter of organisms. It includes both live organisms, and non-living biological material such as plant litter, wood, shells, coral fragments and bones., over decades) and finally sequestration, with atmospheric removal over centuries to millennia. The gathered data suggest that increased transport of turbid freshwater from land into the coastal ocean might reduce coastal productivity, and the ability of marine ecosystems to capture carbon, in the future. “We will contribute evidence about whether primary marine producers can help offset CO2 emissions and make specific suggestions for marine protected areas, especially in the Arctic,” concludes Sejr.