PNAS – Zhou et al. (2025): Warming substantially amplifies Antarctic coastal polynyas as key carbon sinks
Chengzhen Zhou, Maodian Liu, Brad E. Rosenheim, Thomas S. Bianchi, Nikki H. Zhang, Xingrui Cai, Qianru Zhang, and Xuejun Wang, IN: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2511585122
The Southern Ocean plays an important role in the global carbon cycle by absorbing atmospheric CO₂, aiding climate change mitigation. Antarctic coastal polynyas (ACPs) are key CO₂ uptake areas, yet whether this CO₂ is effectively sequestered as organic carbon (OC) in marine sediments, and the spatiotemporal dynamics and drivers of this process, remains unclear. Here, the authors reconstruct a high-resolution record of Holocene (~12,000 y BP) to present-day OC accumulation fluxes and sources in ACP sediments using existing data as well as their measurements.