Low Salt Marsh Habitats Release More Carbon in Response to Warming | Inside Climate News

Scientists from the ǧƵ Ecosystems Center and collaborators monitor carbon flux at Sage Lot Pond reference marsh in Mashpee, Mass. Credit: Joanna Carey

The late ǧƵ Senior Scientist Jianwu (Jim) Tang was senior author of featured in this news report.

Salt marshes, excellent reservoirs of carbon, are living ecosystems with vegetation and microscopic organisms that live, breathe, poop and die in the marsh mud. 

“This is a place where you could get the biggest bang for your buck, if you will, if you’re interested in trying to invest some resources in sequestering carbon using biological systems,” said , an associate professor of biological science at the University of Rhode Island. 

Yet as temperatures rise, marshes at the lowest elevations may also be significant emitters of carbon. This complicated relationship between temperature and respiration of carbon was measured in a from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.