Raven et al.(2025): Big Decisions from Small Experiments: Observational strategies for biomass-based marine carbon storage

Morgan Raven, Natalya Evans, Aaron M Martinez and Alexandra A Phillips IN: Environmental Research Letters, DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/adc28d

Biomass-based CO₂ removal (CDR) with marine storage aims to harness photosynthesis to remove excess CO₂ from the atmosphere and sequester that fixed carbon in a long-lived marine reservoir. To guide decision-making around testing, deploying, and regulating CDR as part of a portfolio of climate mitigation strategies, we need to better understand how the deep sea and broader Earth system would respond to increased biomass addition. The central processes driving this response are sensitive to choices about biomass type and storage site, and they span spatial and temporal scales from microns to kilometers and from minutes to millennia. To organize this interdisciplinary challenge, the authors define five generalizable phases for biomass-based marine carbon storage projects: inputs, placement, short-term response, long-term response, and functional stability. Predicting the effects of potential interventions over global and centennial scales will require the strategic integration of diverse observational types into process-based Earth System models that can be used to support planning.

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