Carbon cycling in the coastal zone affects global carbon budgets and is critical for understanding the urgent issues of hypoxia, acidification, and tidal wetland loss. However, there are no regional carbon budgets spanning the three main ecosystems in coastal waters: tidal wetlands, estuaries, and shelf waters. Here we construct such a budget for eastern North America using historical data, empirical models, remote sensing algorithms, and process‐based models. Considering the net fluxes of total carbon at the domain boundaries, 59 ± 12% (± 2 standard errors) of the carbon entering is from rivers and 41 ± 12% is from the atmosphere, while 80 ± 9% of the carbon leaving is exported to the open ocean and 20 ± 9% is buried. Net lateral carbon transfers between the three main ecosystem types are comparable to fluxes at the domain boundaries. Each ecosystem type contributes substantially to exchange with the atmosphere, with CO2 uptake split evenly between tidal wetlands and shelf waters, and estuarine CO2 outgassing offsetting half of the uptake. Similarly, burial is about equal in tidal wetlands and shelf waters, while estuaries play a smaller but still substantial role. The importance of tidal wetlands and estuaries in the overall budget is remarkable given that they, respectively, make up only 2.4 and 8.9% of the study domain area. This study shows that coastal carbon budgets should explicitly include tidal wetlands, estuaries, shelf waters, and the linkages between them; ignoring any of them may produce a biased picture of coastal carbon cycling.

Net ecosystem production (NEP) and the overall organic carbon budget for the estuaries along the East Coast of the United States are estimated. We focus on the open estuarine waters, excluding the fringing wetlands. We developed empirical models relating NEP to loading ratios of dissolved inorganic nitrogen to total organic carbon, and carbon burial in the sediment to estuarine water residence time and total nitrogen input across the landward boundary. Output from a data-constrained water quality model was used to estimate inputs of total nitrogen and organic carbon to the estuaries across the landward boundary, including fluvial and tidal-wetland sources. Organic carbon export from the estuaries to the continental shelf was computed by difference, assuming steady state. Uncertainties in the budget were estimated by allowing uncertainties in the supporting model relations. Collectively, U.S. East Coast estuaries are net heterotrophic, with the area-integrated NEP of À1.5 (À2.8, À1.0) Tg C yr À1 (best estimate and 95% confidence interval) and area-normalized NEP of. East Coast estuaries serve as a source of organic carbon to the shelf, exporting 3.4 (2.0, 4.3) Tg C yr À1 or 7.6 (4.4, 9.5) mol C m À2 yr À1. Organic carbon inputs from fluvial and tidal-wetland sources for the region are estimated at 5.4 (4.6, 6.5) Tg C yr À1 or 12 (10, 14) mol C m À2 yr À1 and carbon burial in the open estuarine waters at 0.50 (0.33, 0.78) Tg C yr À1 or 1.1 (0.73, 1.7) mol C m À2 yr À1. Our results highlight the importance of estuarine systems in the overall coastal budget of organic carbon, suggesting that in the aggregate, U.S. East Coast estuaries assimilate (via respiration and burial)~40% of organic carbon inputs from fluvial and tidal-wetland sources and allow~60% to be exported to the shelf.

Tidal wetlands contain large reservoirs of carbon in their soils and can sequester carbon dioxide (CO ) at a greater rate per unit area than nearly any other ecosystem. The spatial distribution of this carbon influences climate and wetland policy. To assist with international accords such as the Paris Climate Agreement, national-level assessments such as the United States (U.S.) National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, and regional, state, local, and project-level evaluation of CO sequestration credits, we developed a geodatabase (CoBluCarb) and high-resolution maps of soil organic carbon (SOC) distribution by linking National Wetlands Inventory data with the U.S. Soil Survey Geographic Database. For over 600,000 wetlands, the total carbon stock and organic carbon density was calculated at 5-cm vertical resolution from 0 to 300 cm of depth. Across the continental United States, there are 1,153-1,359 Tg of SOC in the upper 0-100 cm of soils across a total of 24 945.9 km of tidal wetland area, twice as much carbon as the most recent national estimate. Approximately 75% of this carbon was found in estuarine emergent wetlands with freshwater tidal wetlands holding about 19%. The greatest pool of SOC was found within the Atchafalaya/Vermilion Bay complex in Louisiana, containing about 10% of the U.S. total. The average density across all tidal wetlands was 0.071 g cm across 0-15 cm, 0.055 g cm across 0-100 cm, and 0.040 g cm at the 100 cm depth. There is inherent variability between and within individual wetlands; however, we conclude that it is possible to use standardized values at a range of 0-100 cm of the soil profile, to provide first-order quantification and to evaluate future changes in carbon stocks in response to environmental perturbations. This Tier 2-oriented carbon stock assessment provides a scientific method that can be copied by other nations in support of international requirements.

The impacts of atmospheric nitrogen deposition (AND) on the chlorophyll and nitrogen dynamics of surface waters in the western North Atlantic (25°N–45°N, 65°W–80°W) are examined with a biogeochemical ocean model forced with a regional atmospheric chemistry model (Community Multiscale Air Quality, CMAQ). CMAQ simulations with year‐specific emissions reveal the existence of a “hot spot” of AND over the Gulf Stream. The impact of the hot spot on the oceanic biogeochemistry is mitigated in three ways by physical and biogeochemical processes. First, AND significantly contributes to surface oceanic nitrogen concentrations only during the summer period, when the stratification is maximal and the background nitrogen inventories are minimal. Second, the increase in summer surface nitrate concentrations is accompanied by a reduction in upward nitrate diffusion at the base of the surface layer. This negative feedback partly cancels the nitrogen enrichment from AND. Third, gains in biomass near the surface force a shoaling of the euphotic layer and a reduction of about 5% in deep primary production and biomass on the continental shelf. Despite these mitigating processes, the impacts of AND remain substantial. AND increases surface nitrate concentrations in the Gulf Stream region by 14% during the summer (2% on average over the year). New primary production increases by 22% in this region during summer (8% on average). Although these changes may be difficult to distinguish from natural variability in observations, the results support the view that AND significantly enhances local carbon export.

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