Accurate regional climate projections are vital for coastal planners, engineers, and communities which face an onslaught of impacts from climate change, including sea-level rise, changing precipitation patterns, and more intense weather extremes. Ocean processes, including carbon sequestration (long-term storage of atmospheric carbon to mitigate climate change), are a key piece of the puzzle. A Sea Grant-funded researcher harnessed a 28-year sediment data set to quantify the contribution of phytoplankton to deep ocean carbon export and to identify the types of phytoplankton that were exported. She worked with coastal ocean modelers to make this data useful for them and also learn how their modeling data could inform her results. The outreach conducted by the researcher resulted in interdisciplinary discussions and connections that may enable the results of this work to be integrated into future modeling studies. That could improve understanding of the carbon cycle in the California Current and lead to more accurate climate projections, which has broad usefulness for coastal planners and communities.
![Group of people removing ghost nets from a beach.](https://seagrant.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/PMDP_2024-1_MEDIA_43-2-scaled.jpg)
![Group of people removing ghost nets from a beach.](https://seagrant.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/PMDP_2024-1_MEDIA_43-2-scaled.jpg)
Biden-Harris administration invests $27 million to support community-driven marine debris solutions through Investing in America agenda
Today, the Department of Commerce and NOAA announced $27 million in funding for projects to prevent and remove marine debris in coastal and Great Lakes communities as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.Â
This funding will support innovative research and foster local coalitions to address urgent marine debris issues by using NOAA Sea Grant’s partnered approach to bring science together with communities for solutions that work.