The aim is to test whether healthy coastal ecosystems of the Baltic Sea can act as carbon sinks and have a positive effect on the climate. In contrast, degraded coastal ecosystems could emit large amounts of greenhouse gases and accelerate climate change.
The three overarching focus areas are:
Biodiversity and climate research: Exploring long-overlooked relationships between coastal biodiversity and the atmosphere.
Synthesis and modelling: Creating ecosystem models to expand our knowledge from the Baltic Sea to global scales.
Decision-support: Delivering policy-relevant knowledge to stakeholders.
CoastClim will assist coastal management in finding the right solutions to protect our coasts and help them work as effective carbon sinks in the future.
The multidisciplinary expertise in marine ecology, biogeochemistry and atmospheric research enable us to measure feedbacks between coastal biodiversity and our climate.
CoastClim brings together the major marine institutes Tvärminne Zoological Station (HU) and the Baltic Sea Centre (SU) with the atmospheric units Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System research (INAR, HU) and the Bolin Center for Climate Research (SU).