Scientists develop new model to accurately assess global salt marsh carbon sinks
Why it matters: Accurate salt marsh carbon accounting is crucial for global climate models and conservation efforts.
- The Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed SAL-GPP, the first process-based model for salt marsh carbon sequestration, addressing a major gap in global carbon assessments.
- SAL-GPP incorporates tidal and salinity stress modules, allowing it to accurately simulate photosynthesis in C3 and C4 salt marsh plants across various salinity gradients, unlike traditional terrestrial models.
- Prof. Li Tingting highlights that salt marshes are among Earth's most efficient blue carbon ecosystems, storing substantial carbon despite their limited distribution, a contribution previously overlooked.
- The model's validation against global flux tower sites showed excellent performance (R² of 0.82), and its generated high-resolution dataset for 2011–2020 reveals an average annual gross primary production of 66.89 ± 11.68 Tg C yr⁻¹ for global salt marshes.
Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed SAL-GPP, a groundbreaking model that accurately quantifies the carbon sequestration capacity of global salt marshes, a critical step for blue carbon accounting. This first-of-its-kind process-based model uniquely integrates tidal and salinity stress, revealing that these vital ecosystems store significant carbon despite their limited distribution.
