Environmental Research Letters (Jan 2023)

Multi-scale observations of mangrove blue carbon ecosystem fluxes: The NASA Carbon Monitoring System BlueFlux field campaign

  • Benjamin Poulter,
  • Francis M Adams-Metayer,
  • Cibele Amaral,
  • Abigail Barenblitt,
  • Anthony Campbell,
  • Sean P Charles,
  • Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta,
  • Rocco D’Ascanio,
  • Erin R Delaria,
  • Cheryl Doughty,
  • Temilola Fatoyinbo,
  • Jonathan Gewirtzman,
  • Thomas F Hanisco,
  • Moshema Hull,
  • S Randy Kawa,
  • Reem Hannun,
  • David Lagomasino,
  • Leslie Lait,
  • Sparkle L Malone,
  • Paul A Newman,
  • Peter Raymond,
  • Judith A Rosentreter,
  • Nathan Thomas,
  • Derrick Vaughn,
  • Glenn M Wolfe,
  • Lin Xiong,
  • Qing Ying,
  • Zhen Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acdae6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 18, no. 7
p. 075009

Abstract

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The BlueFlux field campaign, supported by NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System, will develop prototype blue carbon products to inform coastal carbon management. While blue carbon has been suggested as a nature-based climate solution (NBS) to remove carbon dioxide (CO _2 ) from the atmosphere, these ecosystems also release additional greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as methane (CH _4 ) and are sensitive to disturbances including hurricanes and sea-level rise. To understand blue carbon as an NBS, BlueFlux is conducting multi-scale measurements of CO _2 and CH _4 fluxes across coastal landscapes, combined with long-term carbon burial, in Southern Florida using chambers, flux towers, and aircraft combined with remote-sensing observations for regional upscaling. During the first deployment in April 2022, CO _2 uptake and CH _4 emissions across the Everglades National Park averaged −4.9 ± 4.7 μ mol CO _2 m ^−2 s ^−1 and 19.8 ± 41.1 nmol CH _4 m ^−2 s ^−1 , respectively. When scaled to the region, mangrove CH _4 emissions offset the mangrove CO _2 uptake by about 5% (assuming a 100 year CH _4 global warming potential of 28), leading to total net uptake of 31.8 Tg CO _2 -eq y ^−1 . Subsequent field campaigns will measure diurnal and seasonal changes in emissions and integrate measurements of long-term carbon burial to develop comprehensive annual and long-term GHG budgets to inform blue carbon as a climate solution.

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