Quantifying the coastal contribution to the North American carbon budget

Abstract

A Coastal Interim Synthesis Workshop; San Francisco, California, 11-12 December 2010; The contribution of coastal margins to regional and global carbon budgets is poorly constrained, largely due to limited information about the magnitude, spatial distribution, and temporal variability of carbon sources and sinks in coastal waters. Building on recommendations of the 2005 North American Continental Margins (NACM) Synthesis and Planning Workshop (http://www.us-ocb. org/ publications/NACM small.pdf), the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) program (http://www.us-ocb.org) is collaborating with the North American Carbon Program (NACP) on a Coastal Interim Synthesis activity to compile observational and modeling results on carbon cycle fluxes along the North American continental margins. This activity is divided into five regions: East Coast, West Coast, Gulf of Mexico, Arctic, and Great Lakes. A coastal synthesis workshop, coordinated by OCB and NACP and sponsored by NASA, convened 56 participants.