Baja's Desert Mangroves Suck Up Carbon Dioxide Joshua Emerson - San Diego Union-Tribune
go to original March 30, 2016

Small red mangroves trees along the dry coastal areas of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. (Octavio Aburto/Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

As climate change has heightened concerns about the global decline of mangroves, a new study found that such ecosystems along the desert coast of Baja California may be more important than previously thought for keeping heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography discovered that despite their short and stunted appearance, mangroves in these desert locations had surprisingly high rates of sequestering carbon underground. In some cases, the ability was several times greater than that of lush mangroves in tropical locations.

“Desert mangroves specifically in Mexico, which are much smaller and cover a very small total land area, sequester comparable amounts of carbon to tropical mangroves in tropical rainforests,” said Paula Ezcurra, a scientist at Scripps and lead author of the new report.

Read the rest at San Diego Union-Tribune

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