Secrets from a two-thousand year old marsh: blue carbon accumulation rates increase with sea level rise

OneNOAA Science Seminar Series

Title:
Secrets from a two-thousand year old marsh: blue carbon accumulation rates increase with sea level rise

Speaker:
Nathan McTigue, PhD, Project Manager, Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research (BLE LTER)

Sponsor:
NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS); coordinator is Tracy Gill. If interested in obtaining a PDF of the slides and/or the mp4 recording, contact Tracy Gill.

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Abstract: 
Earth's vegetated habitats convert atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) into plant material, or organic matter (OM), through photosynthesis. In most habitats, OM decomposes back into CO₂ within decades; however, OM that becomes buried in coastal wetland habitats such as salt marshes can resist decomposition for thousands of years. Due to concerns over increasing CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere, this mechanism, described as the carbon accumulation rate (CAR), has been assessed as a means to naturally remove CO₂ from the atmosphere in hopes of offsetting fossil fuel emissions. Previously calculated rates of OM burial and CAR have been quite variable, making it difficult to calculate the current total burial capacity of the global saltmarsh ecosystems. To better understand this process, we measured CAR in a salt marsh and investigated how this rate changed from 2,400 years ago through present time. We found that while the rate of carbon burial was variable, over the lifetime of this marsh it has been closely correlated with local sea level rise. Moving forward, calculation of CAR must accommodate both the influence of sea level rise while also omitting the recently deposited plant material that will decompose and not contribute to long term OM storage

Bio:
Nathan McTigue is currently a Project Manager for the Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research (BLE LTER) project that launched in 2018. The BLE LTER focuses on coastal processes that influence the food webs in the Alaskan Arctic's Beaufort Sea lagoons. He previously held a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship with NOAA in Beaufort, NC to work on salt marsh carbon storage and breakdown. He holds a PhD from The University of Texas at Austin and a BS from the University of Georgia.

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(Nathan McTigue, PhD, Project Manager, Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research – BLE LTER)