Societal importance of Antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses
Diminishing prospects for environmental preservation under climate change are intensifying efforts to boost capture, storage and sequestration (long-term burial) of carbon. However, as Earth’s biological carbon sinks also shrink, remediation has become a key part of the narrative for terrestrial eco...
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Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8423686/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34491425 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-021-01748-8 |
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:8423686 2023-05-15T13:47:21+02:00 Societal importance of Antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses Barnes, D. K. A. Sands, C. J. Paulsen, M. L. Moreno, B. Moreau, C. Held, C. Downey, R. Bax, N. Stark, J. Zwerschke, N. 2021-09-07 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8423686/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34491425 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-021-01748-8 en eng Springer Berlin Heidelberg http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8423686/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34491425 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00114-021-01748-8 © Crown 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Naturwissenschaften Review Text 2021 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-021-01748-8 2021-09-12T00:43:12Z Diminishing prospects for environmental preservation under climate change are intensifying efforts to boost capture, storage and sequestration (long-term burial) of carbon. However, as Earth’s biological carbon sinks also shrink, remediation has become a key part of the narrative for terrestrial ecosystems. In contrast, blue carbon on polar continental shelves have stronger pathways to sequestration and have increased with climate-forced marine ice losses—becoming the largest known natural negative feedback on climate change. Here we explore the size and complex dynamics of blue carbon gains with spatiotemporal changes in sea ice (60–100 MtCyear(−1)), ice shelves (4–40 MtCyear(−1) = giant iceberg generation) and glacier retreat (< 1 MtCyear(−1)). Estimates suggest that, amongst these, reduced duration of seasonal sea ice is most important. Decreasing sea ice extent drives longer (not necessarily larger biomass) smaller cell-sized phytoplankton blooms, increasing growth of many primary consumers and benthic carbon storage—where sequestration chances are maximal. However, sea ice losses also create positive feedbacks in shallow waters through increased iceberg movement and scouring of benthos. Unlike loss of sea ice, which enhances existing sinks, ice shelf losses generate brand new carbon sinks both where giant icebergs were, and in their wake. These also generate small positive feedbacks from scouring, minimised by repeat scouring at biodiversity hotspots. Blue carbon change from glacier retreat has been least well quantified, and although emerging fjords are small areas, they have high storage-sequestration conversion efficiencies, whilst blue carbon in polar waters faces many diverse and complex stressors. The identity of these are known (e.g. fishing, warming, ocean acidification, non-indigenous species and plastic pollution) but not their magnitude of impact. In order to mediate multiple stressors, research should focus on wider verification of blue carbon gains, projecting future change, and the broader ... Text Antarc* Antarctic Ice Shelf Ice Shelves Iceberg* Ocean acidification Sea ice PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic The Science of Nature 108 5 |
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Review Barnes, D. K. A. Sands, C. J. Paulsen, M. L. Moreno, B. Moreau, C. Held, C. Downey, R. Bax, N. Stark, J. Zwerschke, N. Societal importance of Antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses |
topic_facet |
Review |
description |
Diminishing prospects for environmental preservation under climate change are intensifying efforts to boost capture, storage and sequestration (long-term burial) of carbon. However, as Earth’s biological carbon sinks also shrink, remediation has become a key part of the narrative for terrestrial ecosystems. In contrast, blue carbon on polar continental shelves have stronger pathways to sequestration and have increased with climate-forced marine ice losses—becoming the largest known natural negative feedback on climate change. Here we explore the size and complex dynamics of blue carbon gains with spatiotemporal changes in sea ice (60–100 MtCyear(−1)), ice shelves (4–40 MtCyear(−1) = giant iceberg generation) and glacier retreat (< 1 MtCyear(−1)). Estimates suggest that, amongst these, reduced duration of seasonal sea ice is most important. Decreasing sea ice extent drives longer (not necessarily larger biomass) smaller cell-sized phytoplankton blooms, increasing growth of many primary consumers and benthic carbon storage—where sequestration chances are maximal. However, sea ice losses also create positive feedbacks in shallow waters through increased iceberg movement and scouring of benthos. Unlike loss of sea ice, which enhances existing sinks, ice shelf losses generate brand new carbon sinks both where giant icebergs were, and in their wake. These also generate small positive feedbacks from scouring, minimised by repeat scouring at biodiversity hotspots. Blue carbon change from glacier retreat has been least well quantified, and although emerging fjords are small areas, they have high storage-sequestration conversion efficiencies, whilst blue carbon in polar waters faces many diverse and complex stressors. The identity of these are known (e.g. fishing, warming, ocean acidification, non-indigenous species and plastic pollution) but not their magnitude of impact. In order to mediate multiple stressors, research should focus on wider verification of blue carbon gains, projecting future change, and the broader ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Barnes, D. K. A. Sands, C. J. Paulsen, M. L. Moreno, B. Moreau, C. Held, C. Downey, R. Bax, N. Stark, J. Zwerschke, N. |
author_facet |
Barnes, D. K. A. Sands, C. J. Paulsen, M. L. Moreno, B. Moreau, C. Held, C. Downey, R. Bax, N. Stark, J. Zwerschke, N. |
author_sort |
Barnes, D. K. A. |
title |
Societal importance of Antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses |
title_short |
Societal importance of Antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses |
title_full |
Societal importance of Antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses |
title_fullStr |
Societal importance of Antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses |
title_full_unstemmed |
Societal importance of Antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses |
title_sort |
societal importance of antarctic negative feedbacks on climate change: blue carbon gains from sea ice, ice shelf and glacier losses |
publisher |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8423686/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34491425 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-021-01748-8 |
geographic |
Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Ice Shelf Ice Shelves Iceberg* Ocean acidification Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Ice Shelf Ice Shelves Iceberg* Ocean acidification Sea ice |
op_source |
Naturwissenschaften |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8423686/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34491425 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00114-021-01748-8 |
op_rights |
© Crown 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-021-01748-8 |
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The Science of Nature |
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108 |
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5 |
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1766246974121574400 |