{"type": "FeatureCollection", "features": [{"id": "10.1111/gcb.14620", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-30T16:19:24Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2019-03-18", "title": "Aquatic carbon fluxes dampen the overall variation of net ecosystem productivity in the Amazon basin: An analysis of the interannual variability in the boundless carbon cycle", "description": "Abstract

The river\uffe2\uff80\uff93floodplain network plays an important role in the carbon (C) cycle of the Amazon basin, as it transports and processes a significant fraction of the C fixed by terrestrial vegetation, most of which evades as CO2 from rivers and floodplains back to the atmosphere. There is empirical evidence that exceptionally dry or wet years have an impact on the net C balance in the Amazon. While seasonal and interannual variations in hydrology have a direct impact on the amounts of C transferred through the river\uffe2\uff80\uff93floodplain system, it is not known how far the variation of these fluxes affects the overall Amazon C balance. Here, we introduce a new wetland forcing file for the ORCHILEAK model, which improves the representation of floodplain dynamics and allows us to closely reproduce data\uffe2\uff80\uff90driven estimates of net C exports through the river\uffe2\uff80\uff93floodplain network. Based on this new wetland forcing and two climate forcing datasets, we show that across the Amazon, the percentage of net primary productivity lost to the river\uffe2\uff80\uff93floodplain system is highly variable at the interannual timescale, and wet years fuel aquatic CO2 evasion. However, at the same time overall net ecosystem productivity (NEP) and C sequestration are highest during wet years, partly due to reduced decomposition rates in water\uffe2\uff80\uff90logged floodplain soils. It is years with the lowest discharge and floodplain inundation, often associated with El Nino events, that have the lowest NEP and the highest total (terrestrial plus aquatic) CO2 emissions back to atmosphere. Furthermore, we find that aquatic C fluxes display greater variation than terrestrial C fluxes, and that this variation significantly dampens the interannual variability in NEP of the Amazon basin. These results call for a more integrative view of the C fluxes through the vegetation\uffe2\uff80\uff90soil\uffe2\uff80\uff90river\uffe2\uff80\uff90floodplain continuum, which directly places aquatic C fluxes into the overall C budget of the Amazon basin.Diminishing prospects for environmental preservation under climate change are intensifying efforts to boost capture, storage and sequestration (long-term burial) of carbon. However, as Earth\uffe2\uff80\uff99s biological carbon sinks also shrink, remediation has become a key part of the narrative for terrestrial ecosystems. In contrast, blue carbon on polar continental shelves have stronger pathways to sequestration and have increased with climate-forced marine ice losses\uffe2\uff80\uff94becoming the largest known natural negative feedback on climate change. Here we explore the size and complex dynamics of blue carbon gains with spatiotemporal changes in sea ice (60\uffe2\uff80\uff93100 MtCyear\uffe2\uff88\uff921), ice shelves (4\uffe2\uff80\uff9340 MtCyear\uffe2\uff88\uff921\uffe2\uff80\uff89=\uffe2\uff80\uff89giant iceberg generation) and glacier retreat (<\uffe2\uff80\uff891 MtCyear\uffe2\uff88\uff921). Estimates suggest that, amongst these, reduced duration of seasonal sea ice is most important. Decreasing sea ice extent drives longer (not necessarily larger biomass) smaller cell-sized phytoplankton blooms, increasing growth of many primary consumers and benthic carbon storage\uffe2\uff80\uff94where sequestration chances are maximal. However, sea ice losses also create positive feedbacks in shallow waters through increased iceberg movement and scouring of benthos. Unlike loss of sea ice, which enhances existing sinks, ice shelf losses generate brand new carbon sinks both where giant icebergs were, and in their wake. These also generate small positive feedbacks from scouring, minimised by repeat scouring at biodiversity hotspots. Blue carbon change from glacier retreat has been least well quantified, and although emerging fjords are small areas, they have high storage-sequestration conversion efficiencies, whilst blue carbon in polar waters faces many diverse and complex stressors. The identity of these are known (e.g. fishing, warming, ocean acidification, non-indigenous species and plastic pollution) but not their magnitude of impact. In order to mediate multiple stressors, research should focus on wider verification of blue carbon gains, projecting future change, and the broader environmental and economic benefits to safeguard blue carbon ecosystems through law.The leaching of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from soils to the river network is an overlooked component of the terrestrial soil C budget. Measurements of DOC concentrations in soil, runoff and drainage are scarce and their spatial distribution highly skewed towards industrialized countries. The contribution of terrestrial DOC leaching to the global\uffe2\uff80\uff90scale C balance of terrestrial ecosystems thus remains poorly constrained. Here, using a process based, integrative, modelling approach to upscale from existing observations, we estimate a global terrestrial DOC leaching flux of 0.28\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.07\uffc2\uffa0Gt\uffc2\uffa0C\uffc2\uffa0year\uffe2\uff88\uff921 which is conservative, as it only includes the contribution of mineral soils. Our results suggest that globally about 15% of the terrestrial Net Ecosystem Productivity (NEP, calculated as the difference between Net Primary Production and soil respiration) is exported to aquatic systems as leached DOC. In the tropical rainforest, the leached fraction of terrestrial NEP even reaches 22%. Furthermore, we simulated spatial\uffe2\uff80\uff90temporal trends in DOC leaching from soil to the river networks from 1860 to 2010. We estimated a global increase in terrestrial DOC inputs to river network of 35\uffc2\uffa0Tg\uffc2\uffa0C\uffc2\uffa0year\uffe2\uff88\uff921 (14%) from 1860 to 2010. Despite their low global contribution to the DOC leaching flux, boreal regions have the highest relative increase (28%) while tropics have the lowest relative increase (9%) over the historical period (1860s compared to 2000s). The results from our observationally constrained model approach demonstrate that DOC leaching is a significant flux in the terrestrial C budget at regional and global scales.Lakes (including reservoirs) are an important component of the global carbon (C) cycle, as acknowledged by the fifth assessment report of the IPCC. In the context of lakes, the boreal region is disproportionately important contributing to 27% of the worldwide lake area, despite representing just 14% of global land surface area. In this study, we used a statistical approach to derive a prediction equation\uffc2\uffa0for the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) in lakes as a function of lake area, terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP), and precipitation (r2\uffc2\uffa0=\uffc2\uffa0.56), and to create the first high\uffe2\uff80\uff90resolution, circumboreal map (0.5\uffc2\uffb0) of lake pCO2. The map of\uffc2\uffa0pCO2 was combined with lake area from the recently published GLOWABO database and three different estimates of the gas transfer velocity k to produce a resulting map of CO2 evasion (FCO2). For the boreal region, we estimate an average, lake area weighted, pCO2 of 966 (678\uffe2\uff80\uff931,325) \uffce\uffbcatm and a total\uffc2\uffa0FCO2 of 189 (74\uffe2\uff80\uff93347) Tg\uffc2\uffa0C\uffc2\uffa0year\uffe2\uff88\uff921, and evaluate the corresponding uncertainties based on Monte Carlo simulation. Our estimate of FCO2 is approximately twofold greater than previous estimates, as a result of methodological and data source differences. We use our results along with published estimates of the other C fluxes through inland waters to derive a C budget for the boreal region, and find that FCO2 from lakes is the most significant flux of the land\uffe2\uff80\uff90ocean aquatic continuum, and of a similar magnitude as emissions from forest fires. Using the model and applying it to spatially resolved projections of terrestrial NPP and precipitation while keeping everything else constant, we predict a 107% increase in boreal lake FCO2 under emission scenario RCP8.5 by 2100. Our projections are largely driven by increases in terrestrial NPP over the same period, showing the very close connection between the terrestrial and aquatic C cycle.Emissions of the trace gas nitrous oxide (N2O) play an important role for the greenhouse effect and stratospheric ozone depletion, but the impacts of climate change on N2O fluxes and the underlying microbial drivers remain unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of sustained climate change on field N2O fluxes and associated microbial enzymatic activities, microbial population abundance and community diversity in an extensively managed, upland grassland. We recorded N2O fluxes, nitrification and denitrification, microbial population size involved in these processes and community structure of nitrite reducers (nirK) in a grassland exposed for 4\uffc2\uffa0years to elevated atmospheric CO2 (+200\uffc2\uffa0ppm), elevated temperature (+3.5\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb0C) and reduction of summer precipitations (\uffe2\uff88\uff9220%) as part of a long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term, multifactor climate change experiment. Our results showed that both warming and simultaneous application of warming, summer drought and elevated CO2 had a positive effect on N2O fluxes, nitrification, N2O release by denitrification and the population size of N2O reducers and NH4 oxidizers. In situ N2O fluxes showed a stronger correlation with microbial population size under warmed conditions compared with the control site. Specific lineages of nirK denitrifier communities responded significantly to temperature. In addition, nirK community composition showed significant changes in response to drought. Path analysis explained more than 85% of in situ N2O fluxes variance by soil temperature, denitrification activity and specific denitrifying lineages. Overall, our study underlines that climate\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced changes in grassland N2O emissions reflect climate\uffe2\uff80\uff90induced changes in microbial community structure, which in turn modify microbial processes.

", "keywords": ["d\u00e9nitrification", "Biodiversit\u00e9 et Ecologie", "551", "AOB", "diversity", "Biodiversity and Ecology", "nosZ", "[SDV.EE.ECO] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology", " environment/Ecosystems", "nirK", "Milieux et Changements globaux", "2. Zero hunger", "changement climatique", "denitrification", "grasslands", "N2O", "prairie", "04 agricultural and veterinary sciences", "15. Life on land", "nitrification", "6. Clean water", "[SDE.BE] Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "climate change", "13. Climate action", "[SDV.EE.ECO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology", "AOB;changement climatique;d\u00e9nitrification;diversit\u00e9;prairie;N2O;nitrification", "0401 agriculture", " forestry", " and fisheries", "[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "environment/Ecosystems"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://hal.science/halsde-00722571/file/Cantarel_gcb12_1.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02692.x"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Global%20Change%20Biology", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02692.x", "name": "item", "description": "10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02692.x", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02692.x"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2012-05-08T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.5194/bg-15-4459-2018", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-30T16:22:37Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2018-07-20", "title": "Global soil organic carbon removal by water erosion under climate change and land use change during AD\u20091850\u20132005", "description": "

Abstract. Erosion is an Earth system process that transports carbon laterally across the land surface and is currently accelerated by anthropogenic activities. Anthropogenic land cover change has accelerated soil erosion rates by rainfall and runoff substantially, mobilizing vast quantities of soil organic carbon (SOC) globally. At timescales of decennia to millennia this mobilized SOC can significantly alter previously estimated carbon emissions from land use change (LUC). However, a full understanding of the impact of erosion on land\u2013atmosphere carbon exchange is still missing. The aim of this study is to better constrain the terrestrial carbon fluxes by developing methods compatible with land surface models (LSMs) in order to explicitly represent the links between soil erosion by rainfall and runoff and carbon dynamics. For this we use an emulator that represents the carbon cycle of a LSM, in combination with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model. We applied this modeling framework at the global scale to evaluate the effects of potential soil erosion (soil removal only) in the presence of other perturbations of the carbon cycle: elevated atmospheric CO2, climate variability, and LUC. We find that over the period AD\u20091850\u20132005 acceleration of soil erosion leads to a total potential SOC removal flux of 74\u00b118\u2009Pg\u2009C, of which 79\u2009%\u201385\u2009% occurs on agricultural land and grassland. Using our best estimates for soil erosion we find that including soil erosion in the SOC-dynamics scheme results in an increase of 62\u2009% of the cumulative loss of SOC over 1850\u20132005 due to the combined effects of climate variability, increasing atmospheric CO2 and LUC. This additional erosional loss decreases the cumulative global carbon sink on land by 2\u2009Pg of carbon for this specific period, with the largest effects found for the tropics, where deforestation and agricultural expansion increased soil erosion rates significantly. We conclude that the potential effect of soil erosion on the global SOC stock is comparable to the effects of climate or LUC. It is thus necessary to include soil erosion in assessments of LUC and evaluations of the terrestrial carbon cycle.

", "keywords": ["[SDE] Environmental Sciences", "2. Zero hunger", "QE1-996.5", "550", "Ecologie", "G\u00e9ologie et min\u00e9ralogie", "Ecology", "0207 environmental engineering", "Geology", "02 engineering and technology", "Evolution des esp\u00e8ces", "15. Life on land", "01 natural sciences", "[SDE.BE] Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "Life", "13. Climate action", "QH501-531", "[SDE]Environmental Sciences", "14. Life underwater", "[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "QH540-549.5", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/279784/1/doi_263411.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-4459-2018"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Biogeosciences", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.5194/bg-15-4459-2018", "name": "item", "description": "10.5194/bg-15-4459-2018", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.5194/bg-15-4459-2018"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2018-07-20T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/273667", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Open Access", "updated": "2026-05-30T16:26:44Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2017-09-11", "title": "CO2 evasion from boreal lakes: Revised estimate, drivers of spatial variability, and future projections", "description": "Abstract

Lakes (including reservoirs) are an important component of the global carbon (C) cycle, as acknowledged by the fifth assessment report of the IPCC. In the context of lakes, the boreal region is disproportionately important contributing to 27% of the worldwide lake area, despite representing just 14% of global land surface area. In this study, we used a statistical approach to derive a prediction equation\uffc2\uffa0for the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) in lakes as a function of lake area, terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP), and precipitation (r2\uffc2\uffa0=\uffc2\uffa0.56), and to create the first high\uffe2\uff80\uff90resolution, circumboreal map (0.5\uffc2\uffb0) of lake pCO2. The map of\uffc2\uffa0pCO2 was combined with lake area from the recently published GLOWABO database and three different estimates of the gas transfer velocity k to produce a resulting map of CO2 evasion (FCO2). For the boreal region, we estimate an average, lake area weighted, pCO2 of 966 (678\uffe2\uff80\uff931,325) \uffce\uffbcatm and a total\uffc2\uffa0FCO2 of 189 (74\uffe2\uff80\uff93347) Tg\uffc2\uffa0C\uffc2\uffa0year\uffe2\uff88\uff921, and evaluate the corresponding uncertainties based on Monte Carlo simulation. Our estimate of FCO2 is approximately twofold greater than previous estimates, as a result of methodological and data source differences. We use our results along with published estimates of the other C fluxes through inland waters to derive a C budget for the boreal region, and find that FCO2 from lakes is the most significant flux of the land\uffe2\uff80\uff90ocean aquatic continuum, and of a similar magnitude as emissions from forest fires. Using the model and applying it to spatially resolved projections of terrestrial NPP and precipitation while keeping everything else constant, we predict a 107% increase in boreal lake FCO2 under emission scenario RCP8.5 by 2100. Our projections are largely driven by increases in terrestrial NPP over the same period, showing the very close connection between the terrestrial and aquatic C cycle.

Abstract. Erosion is an Earth system process that transports carbon laterally across the land surface and is currently accelerated by anthropogenic activities. Anthropogenic land cover change has accelerated soil erosion rates by rainfall and runoff substantially, mobilizing vast quantities of soil organic carbon (SOC) globally. At timescales of decennia to millennia this mobilized SOC can significantly alter previously estimated carbon emissions from land use change (LUC). However, a full understanding of the impact of erosion on land\u2013atmosphere carbon exchange is still missing. The aim of this study is to better constrain the terrestrial carbon fluxes by developing methods compatible with land surface models (LSMs) in order to explicitly represent the links between soil erosion by rainfall and runoff and carbon dynamics. For this we use an emulator that represents the carbon cycle of a LSM, in combination with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model. We applied this modeling framework at the global scale to evaluate the effects of potential soil erosion (soil removal only) in the presence of other perturbations of the carbon cycle: elevated atmospheric CO2, climate variability, and LUC. We find that over the period AD\u20091850\u20132005 acceleration of soil erosion leads to a total potential SOC removal flux of 74\u00b118\u2009Pg\u2009C, of which 79\u2009%\u201385\u2009% occurs on agricultural land and grassland. Using our best estimates for soil erosion we find that including soil erosion in the SOC-dynamics scheme results in an increase of 62\u2009% of the cumulative loss of SOC over 1850\u20132005 due to the combined effects of climate variability, increasing atmospheric CO2 and LUC. This additional erosional loss decreases the cumulative global carbon sink on land by 2\u2009Pg of carbon for this specific period, with the largest effects found for the tropics, where deforestation and agricultural expansion increased soil erosion rates significantly. We conclude that the potential effect of soil erosion on the global SOC stock is comparable to the effects of climate or LUC. It is thus necessary to include soil erosion in assessments of LUC and evaluations of the terrestrial carbon cycle.

", "keywords": ["[SDE] Environmental Sciences", "2. Zero hunger", "QE1-996.5", "550", "Ecologie", "G\u00e9ologie et min\u00e9ralogie", "Ecology", "0207 environmental engineering", "Geology", "02 engineering and technology", "Evolution des esp\u00e8ces", "15. Life on land", "01 natural sciences", "[SDE.BE] Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "Life", "13. Climate action", "QH501-531", "[SDE]Environmental Sciences", "14. Life underwater", "[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology", "QH540-549.5", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/279784/1/doi_263411.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/279784"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Biogeosciences", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/279784", "name": "item", "description": "2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/279784", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/279784"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2018-07-20T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/287489", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-30T16:26:45Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2019-03-18", "title": "Aquatic carbon fluxes dampen the overall variation of net ecosystem productivity in the Amazon basin: An analysis of the interannual variability in the boundless carbon cycle", "description": "Abstract

The river\uffe2\uff80\uff93floodplain network plays an important role in the carbon (C) cycle of the Amazon basin, as it transports and processes a significant fraction of the C fixed by terrestrial vegetation, most of which evades as CO2 from rivers and floodplains back to the atmosphere. There is empirical evidence that exceptionally dry or wet years have an impact on the net C balance in the Amazon. While seasonal and interannual variations in hydrology have a direct impact on the amounts of C transferred through the river\uffe2\uff80\uff93floodplain system, it is not known how far the variation of these fluxes affects the overall Amazon C balance. Here, we introduce a new wetland forcing file for the ORCHILEAK model, which improves the representation of floodplain dynamics and allows us to closely reproduce data\uffe2\uff80\uff90driven estimates of net C exports through the river\uffe2\uff80\uff93floodplain network. Based on this new wetland forcing and two climate forcing datasets, we show that across the Amazon, the percentage of net primary productivity lost to the river\uffe2\uff80\uff93floodplain system is highly variable at the interannual timescale, and wet years fuel aquatic CO2 evasion. However, at the same time overall net ecosystem productivity (NEP) and C sequestration are highest during wet years, partly due to reduced decomposition rates in water\uffe2\uff80\uff90logged floodplain soils. It is years with the lowest discharge and floodplain inundation, often associated with El Nino events, that have the lowest NEP and the highest total (terrestrial plus aquatic) CO2 emissions back to atmosphere. Furthermore, we find that aquatic C fluxes display greater variation than terrestrial C fluxes, and that this variation significantly dampens the interannual variability in NEP of the Amazon basin. These results call for a more integrative view of the C fluxes through the vegetation\uffe2\uff80\uff90soil\uffe2\uff80\uff90river\uffe2\uff80\uff90floodplain continuum, which directly places aquatic C fluxes into the overall C budget of the Amazon basin.The leaching of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from soils to the river network is an overlooked component of the terrestrial soil C budget. Measurements of DOC concentrations in soil, runoff and drainage are scarce and their spatial distribution highly skewed towards industrialized countries. The contribution of terrestrial DOC leaching to the global\uffe2\uff80\uff90scale C balance of terrestrial ecosystems thus remains poorly constrained. Here, using a process based, integrative, modelling approach to upscale from existing observations, we estimate a global terrestrial DOC leaching flux of 0.28\uffc2\uffa0\uffc2\uffb1\uffc2\uffa00.07\uffc2\uffa0Gt\uffc2\uffa0C\uffc2\uffa0year\uffe2\uff88\uff921 which is conservative, as it only includes the contribution of mineral soils. Our results suggest that globally about 15% of the terrestrial Net Ecosystem Productivity (NEP, calculated as the difference between Net Primary Production and soil respiration) is exported to aquatic systems as leached DOC. In the tropical rainforest, the leached fraction of terrestrial NEP even reaches 22%. Furthermore, we simulated spatial\uffe2\uff80\uff90temporal trends in DOC leaching from soil to the river networks from 1860 to 2010. We estimated a global increase in terrestrial DOC inputs to river network of 35\uffc2\uffa0Tg\uffc2\uffa0C\uffc2\uffa0year\uffe2\uff88\uff921 (14%) from 1860 to 2010. Despite their low global contribution to the DOC leaching flux, boreal regions have the highest relative increase (28%) while tropics have the lowest relative increase (9%) over the historical period (1860s compared to 2000s). The results from our observationally constrained model approach demonstrate that DOC leaching is a significant flux in the terrestrial C budget at regional and global scales.Diminishing prospects for environmental preservation under climate change are intensifying efforts to boost capture, storage and sequestration (long-term burial) of carbon. However, as Earth\uffe2\uff80\uff99s biological carbon sinks also shrink, remediation has become a key part of the narrative for terrestrial ecosystems. In contrast, blue carbon on polar continental shelves have stronger pathways to sequestration and have increased with climate-forced marine ice losses\uffe2\uff80\uff94becoming the largest known natural negative feedback on climate change. Here we explore the size and complex dynamics of blue carbon gains with spatiotemporal changes in sea ice (60\uffe2\uff80\uff93100 MtCyear\uffe2\uff88\uff921), ice shelves (4\uffe2\uff80\uff9340 MtCyear\uffe2\uff88\uff921\uffe2\uff80\uff89=\uffe2\uff80\uff89giant iceberg generation) and glacier retreat (<\uffe2\uff80\uff891 MtCyear\uffe2\uff88\uff921). Estimates suggest that, amongst these, reduced duration of seasonal sea ice is most important. Decreasing sea ice extent drives longer (not necessarily larger biomass) smaller cell-sized phytoplankton blooms, increasing growth of many primary consumers and benthic carbon storage\uffe2\uff80\uff94where sequestration chances are maximal. However, sea ice losses also create positive feedbacks in shallow waters through increased iceberg movement and scouring of benthos. Unlike loss of sea ice, which enhances existing sinks, ice shelf losses generate brand new carbon sinks both where giant icebergs were, and in their wake. These also generate small positive feedbacks from scouring, minimised by repeat scouring at biodiversity hotspots. Blue carbon change from glacier retreat has been least well quantified, and although emerging fjords are small areas, they have high storage-sequestration conversion efficiencies, whilst blue carbon in polar waters faces many diverse and complex stressors. The identity of these are known (e.g. fishing, warming, ocean acidification, non-indigenous species and plastic pollution) but not their magnitude of impact. In order to mediate multiple stressors, research should focus on wider verification of blue carbon gains, projecting future change, and the broader environmental and economic benefits to safeguard blue carbon ecosystems through law.