The Surprising Link Between Fjords and Carbon

The magnificent, steep-sided fjords that slice deeply into the coastlines of New Zealand, Norway and Alaska are hugely popular attractions for tourists.  But they may be surprisingly important to the Earth’s climate system as well.

While fjords make up just one tenth of one percent of the oceans’ surface area they account for about 11 percent of the carbon locked away in marine sediments each year — carbon that can’t leak out into the atmosphere to add to global warming, says a new report in Nature Geoscience.

The sediments come from rapid erosion of soil and plant debris into fast-running rivers that flow into the fjords from surrounding mountains.  “We suspected fjords were important to the global carbon cycle, but when we really analyzed it, we realized, ‘wow!’ ” said Richard Smith, of the consulting firm Global Aquatic Research, in Sodus, N.Y., lead author of the study.

Climate scientists already know that about half of the carbon that humans pump into the atmosphere, mostly through the burning of fossil fuels, is reabsorbed by the land and oceans in various ways.  But the precise breakdown isn’t all that well understood.

Read more at The Surprising Link Between Fjords and Carbon