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ABSORPTION, DEPOSITION AND FOSSILIZATION OF ATMOSPHERIC CARBON BY MARINE ECOSYSTEMS OF THE RUSSIAN NORTH-EAST

Elena Shirkova

Abstract

The report summarizes the results of research on the topic of the report carried out by the authors in 2017-2019 as part of the study of climate change problem. The purpose of the research is the approximate physical and cost assessment of ecosystem services of binding, long-term deposition and fossilization of excess atmospheric carbon dioxide by marine ecosystems. The object of research is dissolved organic matter (DOM) as a large reservoir of atmospheric carbon deposition in the seas of Northern Pacifica. The study area ? the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea, and adjacent to Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean within the boundaries of the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Russian Federation. Materials and methods ? literature sources and data of satellite monitoring of primary production (phytoplankton) in the research area for 1998-2016. Methodical and instrumental base ? system analysis, interdisciplinary approach and simulation. The results and their novelty ? for the whole research area, as well as for its seas and their separate zones are calculated: the probable volume of dissolved organic matter (DOM); the probable annual volume of long-term deposition of atmospheric carbon to the DOM; the probable annual volume of carbon fossilization of the DOM in bottom sediments; the probable annual and capitalized cost of deposition to the DOM and disposal in the sediments of the study area of the calculated volumes of CO2. All these results for the research area were obtained for the first time, but their quantitative reliability is estimated only at the level of the order of magnitude. This is determined by the general scarcity of initial information on the object of research and, above all, by the high uncertainty of available literature estimates of the time of full mineralization of DOM in high-latitude seas. Refinement of these estimates using computational balance experiments on simulation models is another task of the authors on the problem.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/3.1/s15.082

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