Look up to the blue skies, look right to the boats floating out at sea, look left to the deep green marshes of the Everglades and Big Cypress National Parks in Florida.
Look up to the blue skies, look right to the boats floating out at sea, look left to the deep green marshes of the Everglades and Big Cypress National Parks in Florida. This mangrove ecosystem contributes to the larger cycle of greenhouse gases, by both releasing and taking in carbon-containing compounds. How much, you might ask? Let’s find out!
This fall, scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, took to the skies (and sea and land) to take measurements of carbon dioxide and methane as part of the Blueflux field campaign.
Blueflux, funded by the NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System project, aims to create a database of carbon dioxide and methane fluxes – or intakes and emissions – of mangrove ecosystems, which exist in coastal areas.
“The mangroves are of interest for Blueflux because they’re really good at taking up and storing the carbon dioxide,” said Erin Delaria, post-doctoral associate at Goddard.
Read more at NASA
Image: View over the left wing as we flew over mangrove forests in the western portion of the park north of Whitewater Bay. (Credit: Pilot Lawrence Grippo)
