Climate change and Carbon Burial in the Beaufort Sea (CarBBeau)

Warming temperatures in the Arctic are increasing discharge from the Mackenzie River and rates of coastal erosion along the Beaufort Sea coast.

These processes are delivering large amounts of carbon to coastal waters where they may alter ecosystem dynamics and drive ocean acidification. This threatens coastal communities who rely on marine resources for subsistence. Quantifying these impacts requires improved knowledge on the offshore fate of remobilized terrestrial carbon.

In this project we will collect and analyze new marine sediment cores from the large shallow coastal waters of the Beaufort Sea to map the amount and accumulation rates of carbon on the shelf.

Geochemical and isotope-based approaches will be applied to separate fluxes of marine and terrestrially derived material.

Deliverables from the project will form valuable long-term resources for scientists and policy makers working with local communities to preserve the Large Marine Ecosystem of the Beaufort Sea.

Time-series from marine sediment cores will be used to document how anthropogenic climate change has impacted carbon burial, sea ice and primary production.

This proposal builds on the multidisciplinary aims of the Permafrost Carbon on the Beaufort Shelf project funded by the Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium, a Horizon 2020 initiative and another BNP-Paribas climate and biodiversity project to investigate the fate and impacts of terrestrial materials delivered to coastal waters.