Quantifying the Full-Depth Blue Carbon Reservoir of Jamaica Bay, New York Salt Marshes
Abstract
Constraining uncertainty in the global carbon cycle requires greater knowledge of both Blue Carbon (carbon stored in marine and coastal ecosystems) and terrestrial carbon stocks, depending largely on the global volume of soil and its carbon content. Quantifying the global carbon stock of coastal wetlands, potentially the most efficient carbon-burying ecosystems in the world per unit area, is a key area of further research in both of these fields. However, coastal wetlands are increasingly at risk due to climate change, sea level rise, and anthropogenic disturbance and destruction. Despite the fact that salt marshes often sequester carbon several meters deep, nearly all estimates of salt marsh carbon stocks consider only the top .5m or 1m. Using full-depth measurements, we estimate the carbon stocks of salt marshes in Jamaica Bay, New York. These estimates use carbon content and probe depth data of these marshes collected between 2000 and 2019, applying and extrapolating this data onto and across the full area of these marshes obtained from satellite imaging. Carbon density is multiplied by the full-depth volume of each marsh to create an estimate of total carbon stock. In addition to calculating present-day estimates, we compare our estimates of current carbon stocks to historical imagery to calculate historical carbon stocks and carbon loss. The carbon stock estimates presented here show a 95% carbon stock loss between the late 1885 and 2019 in Jamaica Bay and severe underestimation of carbon stocks without full-depth calculations. These findings have important implications for the global carbon cycle and the incorporation of Blue Carbon into global climate models. Additionally, the findings are relevant for advocacy efforts aiming to conserve these marshes' sequestered carbon and the movement towards a more accurate standard of calculating Blue Carbon in salt marshes.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMB049.0007P
- Keywords:
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- 0439 Ecosystems;
- structure and dynamics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0497 Wetlands;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 1615 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1813 Eco-hydrology;
- HYDROLOGY