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From Greenland to the deep sea via ocean express: North Atlantic Seaweed has potential as major carbon trap

Greenlandic seaweed beds, such as the bladderwrack shown here, which is also found at more temperate European coastlines, can make a significant contribution to long-term carbon storage and thus help protect the climate.
Greenlandic seaweed beds, such as the bladderwrack shown here, which is also found at more temperate European coastlines, can make a significant contribution to long-term carbon storage and thus help protect the climate. (Photo: D. Carlson)

Greenland’s coastal macroalgal forests may be a far more significant contributor to global carbon storage than previously thought. That is the outcome of a new study co-led by the IOW and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon. By combining satellite imagery, ocean drifter trajectories, and high-resolution ocean turbulence models, the international research team demonstrated, how ocean currents and intense mixing events act to push seaweeds – and thus the carbon in their tissues – into the deep ocean. The study was recently published in the Journal Science of the Total Environment.

 

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application/pdf 20260128_press_Seaweed_transport_Greenland_deep_sea_en.pdf (214.9 KiB)

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