Blue carbon for how long? Lability of buried salt marsh carbon released via erosion.

Abstract:

With our climate rapidly changing due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the ability of coastal wetlands to sequester carbon (C) on century to millennial time scales has bolstered new interest in these habitats. This stored sedimentary organic carbon termed “blue C” can be eroded to surface horizons from the impacts of sea level rise, storm events, or other physical modifications of the coastline, potentially returning CO₂ to the atmosphere upon microbially mediated remineralization. The rates and extent of these remineralization processes are largely unknown. A field exercise revealed a horizontal gradient in the organic matter content of marsh sediments perpendicular to creek banks, as proximity to tidal creeks resulted in a decline in sediment C content, with some variation due to creekbank morphology. We also conducted lab experiments to test the effect of temperature, as in some systems it has been found that a 1°C increase in temperature increases organic matter decomposition rates by 20%. In this study, fluxes of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), pH, and pCO₂ were measured to determine carbon remineralization rates of marsh sediment collected 30 cm below the surface. A 20°C and 30°C temperature treatment was instituted to examine Q₁₀ and activation energy of the decomposition processes that could potentially act as a climate change positive feedback upon erosion of blue carbon. Laboratory results show that the century-old blue carbon overall is refractory to tidal creek microbes, as only a maximum of 0.28% of sediment organic C was respired in two-week incubations. However, the remineralization rate exhibited a Q₁₀ of 2.45, indicating that the organic carbon, despite being refractory, is temperature sensitive and will degrade exponentially if exposed to higher temperatures. These rates were then modeled at current and projected temperature profiles and applied to actual erosion rates in the study site to assess the release of carbon dioxide via erosion under different climate change scenarios.