Understanding carbon cycling in coastal habitats is critical for understanding global carbon budgets and opportunities for climate change mitigation. At the interface between oceanic and terrestrial environments, blue carbon systems, such as salt marshes, sequester large amounts of carbon via productivity and sedimentation. A factor that can offset this carbon sequestration is the outwelling of carbon to adjacent ecosystems. MIT Sea Grant created three environmental sensing buoys that continuously measure vital coastal parameters including temperature, salinity, chlorophyll fluorescence, CDOM (Colored Dissolved Organic Matter) fluorescence, optical backscatter, wind speed and direction, light (as photosynthetically active radiation), air temperature, and relative humidity. Using data from those buoys and 12 years of transect data they were able to estimate the total outwelling of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) using high-resolution in situ chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) as a proxy for the Neponset Salt Marsh in Boston, Massachusetts.
![Four people install substrate for an oyster reef.](https://seagrant.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/53238624329_3155374926_o-scaled.jpg)
![Four people install substrate for an oyster reef.](https://seagrant.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/53238624329_3155374926_o-scaled.jpg)
Biden-Harris Administration invests $60 million to build a climate-ready workforce through Investing in America agenda
Today, the Department of Commerce and NOAA announced $60 million in funding to help train and place people in jobs that advance a climate-ready workforce for coastal and Great Lakes states, Tribes and Territories as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda under the Inflation Reduction Act. To date, awards like these from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda have created more than 270,000 jobs across the country.
The funding will support nine projects around the nation, with $50 million going directly to the projects and $10 million for technical assistance to support the grantees.