title: Negative CO2emissions via enhanced silicate weathering in coastal environments.
abstract: Negative emission technologies (NETs) target the removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, and are being actively investigated as a strategy to limit global warming to within the 1.5-2°C targets of the 2015 UN climate agreement. Enhanced silicate weathering (ESW) proposes to exploit the natural process of mineral weathering for the removal of CO2from the atmosphere. Here, we discuss the potential of applying ESW in coastal environments as a climate change mitigation option. By deliberately introducing fast-weathering silicate minerals onto coastal sediments, alkalinity is released into the overlying waters, thus creating a coastal CO2sink. Compared with other NETs, coastal ESW has the advantage that it counteracts ocean acidification, does not interfere with terrestrial land use and can be directly integrated into existing coastal management programmes with existing (dredging) technology. Yet presently, the concept is still at an early stage, and so two major research challenges relate to the efficiency and environmental impact of ESW. Dedicated experiments are needed (i) to more precisely determine the weathering rate underin situconditions within the seabed and (ii) to evaluate the ecosystem impacts-both positive and negative-from the released weathering products.
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical, Environmental and Geo-Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium filip.meysman@vub.be.|Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Aarhus University, Hoegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Filip J R
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5334-7655
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Meysman
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical, Environmental and Geo-Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Francesc
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Montserrat
mesh_terms: D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D057231:Climate Change; D017640:Silicates; D014887:Weather
chemical_list: D017640:Silicates; D002245:Carbon Dioxide
keywords: carbon dioxide removal; climate change; enhanced weathering; marine ecosystems; olivine