ABSTRACT
Ecosystem modeling provides a unique opportunity to estimate greenhouse gas fluxes over larger temporal and spatial scales. Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are typically reported as mole fractions, or mixing ratios, which present the ratio of the number of moles of a greenhouse gas in a given volume to the total number of moles of all gases in that volume. While there are numerous greenhouse gases present at various concentrations in the atmosphere, this chapter focuses on methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) which are regulated by biological activities and have important implications in the context of understanding blue carbon (C) in coastal ecosystems. It deals with a justification for the need to understand CH4 and N2O dynamics in blue C projects while concomitantly justifying the exclusion of carbon dioxide in this context. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of some of the methods that can be used to measure CH4 and N2O fluxes from coastal ecosystems.
