Global-Scale interactions between mangrove forests and climate
Covering 0.5% of the global coastal area, mangrove forests are among the most carbon-rich forests on Earth and account for >10% of total terrestrial carbon input to the ocean. As a result, mangroves provide a vital link between the terrestrial and oceanic carbon cycles and have been placed as a climate-change mitigation component on the international policy agenda. Despite their ecological and socio-economical importance, and the role they play in climate regulation, an increasing amount of evidence indicates that their geographic distribution is shifting in response to climate change, impacting human welfare, ecosystem functioning, and potentially also the dynamics of climate itself. I propose to study the GLObal-scale interactions between MAngrove forests and Climate (GLOMAC) by assessing, for the first time (1) the export, transport, and fate of carbon from mangrove forests in the ocean and its contribution to carbon sequestration in the global ocean and atmosphere and (2) the potential effect of climate change on the global distribution of mangroves and the role of different environmental factors therein. This ambitious goal will be achieved by (1) extending a novel global-ocean biogeochemistry model (ECCO-Darwin) with mangrove-ocean carbon fluxes derived from the first high-resolution (30 m) global mangrove canopy height dataset and (2) integrating mangrove habitat suitability estimates into a global-ocean dispersal model (ECCO-Dispersal). GLOMAC provides an important first step toward integrating coastal and global carbon cycles and will help improve understanding of the impact that global warming may have on the geographic distribution of mangroves and coastal ecosystem services. The resulting modelling tools can be refined upon availability of future data and will be useful and informative to studies in other coastal and marine ecosystems, global (blue) carbon programs, as well as the economic sector (e.g., fisheries, dredging, and marine engineering).