New EU project kicks off: SEA-Quester to investigate polar blue carbon in emerging ecosystems

Through the HorizonEurope Programme, the European Union will provide €5,5 million to fund 11 polar partners led by DTU-Aqua for 4 years, starting 1 February 2024

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AS NOVEL MARINE ECOSYSTEMS EMERGE IN HIGH LATITUDE SEAS, PRIMARILY DUE TO REDUCED SEA-ICE COVERAGE AND CHANGES IN SPECIES DISTRIBUTION (I.E. AS MACROALGAE LIKE KELP EXPAND POLEWARD), THESE CHANGES ARE HYPOTHESIZED TO ENHANCE THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS CAPACITY TO STORE CARBON. SEA-QUESTER AIMS TO TEST THIS HYPOTHESIS BY EXAMINING CARBON CYCLING PROCESSES ALONG COASTAL MARGINS, WITHIN SHELF AREAS, AND THE PELAGIC OR OPEN OCEAN, AS WELL AS THE PATHWAYS BETWEEN THEM AND CROSS-SHELF EXCHANGE.

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CREDIT: SEA-QUESTER PROJECT CONSORTIUM

SEA-Quester is investigating carbon cycling in novel marine polar ecosystems that are expected to emerge due to climate change. Melting sea-ice, changing currents, and a warmer ocean are already changing species distributions, behaviors, and metabolism. How these will further change marine biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, like carbon sequestration, in the polar seas is not well understood. However, this has potentially large consequences for meeting targets for biodiversity and climate change mitigation.

SEA-Quester will tackle the unknowns of “polar blue carbon” through a combination of field observations, remote sensing, and modelling. Field cruises to the fjords and shelf seas around Greenland and Svalbard, in addition to the Southern Ocean, will investigate the uptake and storage of carbon as it moves from coastal ecosystems (such as kelp forests) to the open ocean, where biological processes related to plankton, fish, and bottom-dwelling organisms play an important role in determining the ultimate fate of the carbon our oceans take out of the atmosphere.

These new insights are not only helpful for improved modeling of the global ocean and EOV (essential ocean variable) monitoring, but will also be showcased in new management tools, such as a biological sequestration amplification factor and maps of blue carbon sequestration potential. These new tools will help tackle the challenges and address tradeoffs in protecting and managing Arctic marine areas, while shedding light on the mitigation potential of natural carbon sequestration processes.

Map showing 4 representative locations where SEA-Quester will document and quantify ecosystem changes associated with blue carbon storage: 1) West Greenland, 2) Norwegian sea spanning from East Greenland to Svalbard, 3) the Baltic Sea and 4) the Southern Ocean. SEA-Quester also plans to work across multiple taxa and habitats, from the benthos to the open ocean.

CREDIT

SEA-Quester project proposal

Ice breaking up under a clear blue sky, taken during an ECOTIP project cruise. Photo by Anna Törnroos from Åbo Academy University

CREDIT

Anna Törnroos, Åbo Academy University

SEA-Quester runs from February 1st, 2024 to January 31st, 2028, and is a collaboration between the following partners: Technical University of Denmark, DTU-Aqua (Denmark, Lead), University of Bremen (Germany), Greenland Climate Research Centre, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources (GINR, Greenland), Alfred-Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar & Marine Research (Germany), Leibniz-Institute for Baltic Sea Research (IOW, Germany), Åbo Akademi University (Finland), Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences (IOPAN), GRID-Arendal (Norway), Hereon Helmholtz-Zentrum (Germany), Imperial College London, and Aarhus University (Denmark).

SEA-Quester received funding under Grant Agreement No: 101136480. Our sister project, Polar Ocean Mitigation Potential (POMP) was also funded under the same call HORIZON-CL6-2023-CLIMATE-01-3.

Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. The European Union cannot be held responsible for them.