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Coastal wetlands

Inorganic blue carbon sequestration

Nature Sustainability volume 6, pages 1039–1040 (2023)Cite this article

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Restoring coastal vegetated habitats can remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it as organic matter in sediments. A study now shows that these habitats also support seawater to store more carbon, and for longer, in its dissolved inorganic form.

To limit warming to 2 °C by 2100, actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere will be required4. The ocean already acts as a major, anthropogenic carbon remover, storing about 25% of annual CO2 emissions5. Boosting this ocean CO2 storage further is currently the focus of extensive research and field trials, notably including by restoring, maintaining or developing ecosystems producing ‘blue carbon’, that is, the carbon stored as organic matter by marine organisms and their remains6 — an ocean equivalent of planting trees to store carbon7.

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Acknowledgements

This research contributes to the Netherlands Earth System Science Centre, financially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences in the Netherlands.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CEREGE, Aix Marseille University, CNRS, IRD, INRAE, Collège de France, Aix-en-Provence, France

    Olivier Sulpis

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Jack J. Middelburg

Authors
  1. Olivier Sulpis
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  2. Jack J. Middelburg
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Olivier Sulpis or Jack J. Middelburg.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Sulpis, O., Middelburg, J.J. Inorganic blue carbon sequestration. Nat Sustain 6, 1039–1040 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01143-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01143-3

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