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Biological export of shelf carbon is a sink of the global CO2 cycle

Nature volume 291, pages 196–201 (1981)Cite this article

Abstract

Measurements of carbon metabolism, production and exchange along food webs suggest that large fractions of the organic matter produced on continental shelves must be exported to continental slopes. The annual loss of organic matter from continental shelf ecosystems is far greater than in the open ocean. If part of the loss of nearshore primary production has increased in those coastal zones where anthropogenic inorganic nutrient supplies have been consistently increasing since the industrial revolution, then burial and diagenesis of this material in slope depocentres could represent the ‘missing BMTs of carbon’ in global CO2 budgets.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oceanographic Sciences Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, 11973, USA

    John J. Walsh & Gilbert T. Rowe

  2. Department of Oceanography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, 32306, USA

    Richard L. Iverson

  3. Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Alaska, College, Alaska, 99701, USA

    C. Peter McRoy

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  1. John J. Walsh
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  2. Gilbert T. Rowe
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  3. Richard L. Iverson
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  4. C. Peter McRoy
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Walsh, J., Rowe, G., Iverson, R. et al. Biological export of shelf carbon is a sink of the global CO2 cycle. Nature 291, 196–201 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/291196a0

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