Sten et al. (2025): On the Efficiency and Durability of Purposefully Sinking Seaweed Biomass as a Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Strategy

Michaela Sten, Kana Yamamoto, Timothy DeVries, Sebastian Krause, David A. Siegel, IN: ESS Open Archive, https://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.176306401.14802254/v1

Large-scale farming and purposeful sinking of seaweed has been suggested as a marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR) strategy. Farmed seaweed uptakes dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) from the mixed layer, resulting in a CO₂ deficit that causes an influx of atmospheric CO₂ into the surface ocean. The carbon-rich seaweed is then harvested and conveyed to depth where the sequestered biomass is either eventually remineralized back to DIC or incorporated into sediments on the seafloor. To explore the efficiency and durability of seaweed mCDR, the authors simulate the advection and mixing of a DIC deficit through the ocean with a steady state global ocean circulation model that includes an interacting atmosphere with realistic air-sea gas exchange.

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