Blue Carbon production, export and sequestration in emerging polar ecosystems

General Information

The rapid pace of climate change in high latitude seas is promoting the emergence of novel ecosystems in coastal regions as well as in the open ocean. SEA-Quester will conduct field surveys, process studies and model analyses to improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of these emerging polar ecosystems; their potential for blue carbon sequestration, their implications for marine biodiversity, and their role in the global eco-bio-geo-chemical climate system.
SEA-Quester will do so with a rigorous analysis of blue carbon stocks and their dynamics, laying the foundations for a fit-for-purpose blue carbon accounting with balance sheets for not just carbon sequestration, but other impacted marine ecosystem services such as fisheries production. SEA-Quester considers all forms of blue carbon in coastal, pelagic, and benthic novel marine ecosystems, living and dead, in the water column and in the sediments, and uses a mechanistic approach to reduce uncertainties in model predictions. A key outcome of SEA-Quester will be to develop a thorough means of quantifying the trade-off between harvesting marine biomass and its net contribution to carbon sequestration: the Biomass-Sequestration amplification factor. SEA-Quester will ensure effective exploitation of the project results in international scientific assessments of Blue Carbon potential and by policy-makers (specifically targeting Nationally Determined Contribution estimates), to ensure dialogue, communication and dissemination to National and European governmental bodies, European citizens and NGO’s, and to provide recommendations for optimizing the monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem services in emerging polar environments.
Hereon leads the work package entitled “Effects of climate change and anthropogenic stressors” with particular task responsibilities for studying (i) effects of climate change on physical processes of carbon uptake and inorganic carbon reservoirs, as well as (ii) interacting effects of multiple stressors in fjords and coastal oceans.

EU-Programme Acronym and Subprogramme Area	HORIZON-CL6-2023-CLIMATE-01-3
Project Type	Research and Innovation Action (RIA)
Contract Number	Grant Agreement 101136480
Co-ordinator	Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DK)

Funding for the Project (€)	Funding for Hereon (€)
5,111,918	410,460

Contact Person at Hereon

Prof. Dr. Helmuth Thomas, Institute of Carbon Cycles, KC, Phone +49 4152 872805 E-mail contact

Participants

Institute of Oceanology, P A S, Sopot (PL), ABO Akademi (FI), Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung AWI (DE), Gronlands Naturinstitut (DK), Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (UK), Institut für Ostseeforschung Warnemünde IOW (DE), Instituto Nacional De Pesquisas Espaciais (BR), Stiftelsen Grid Arendal (NO), Technical University of Denmark (DK), Universität Bremen (DE), University of Aarhus (DK)

Last Update: 06. February 2024