NASA-Supported Study Tracks Carbon Cost of Coastal Erosion

NASA Science reports that coastal wetlands along the Gulf Coast and Eastern seaboard are now releasing more than one point four five billion pounds of carbon into the ocean each year. The research, which combined Landsat satellite imagery with U.S. Geological Survey lidar data from nineteen eighty‑five through twenty twenty‑two, estimates a net loss of around eight hundred million pounds of carbon annually despite some new marsh growth. Hurricanes Katrina in two thousand five and Ida in two thousand twenty‑one spurred especially rapid erosion in the Mississippi River Delta, a region that now mobilizes more coastal carbon than the entire Eastern seaboard. To improve how this land‑to‑sea carbon flux is represented, scientists are building new models at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, sharpening the overall picture of Earth’s carbon cycle.

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