carbon sink

noun

plural carbon sinks

: a location (such as the ocean, the soil, or a forest) that stores substances which contain carbon and especially carbon dioxide

Advocates of "sequestration" argue that the ocean already functions as the world's largest carbon sink: it contains 50 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere, most of which is stored in sediments on the ocean floor.

—Linda Baker

Research has found that drought and declining water availability are increasingly impeding the ability of tropical ecosystems to soak up carbon dioxide, making the tropics a less effective carbon sink.

—Glenn Scherer

Peatlands serve as a major carbon sink. Their defining feature is a thick soil layer of leaf litter and other dead vegetation in a waterlogged state, meaning it can't fully decompose, which prevents vast amounts of carbon emissions.

—Isabel Esterman

Examples of carbon sink in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Cutting down half a dozen or so trees would gain as much as 2,000 kWh a year, but come at a financial and climate expense, since trees are carbon sinks. —Tik Root, WIRED, 30 Mar. 2024

By contrast, bottom trawling endangers not just the future of local fish stocks, but the existence of one of Europe’s most important carbon sinks. —Tristan Kennedy, WIRED, 19 Mar. 2024

The elimination of these precious carbon sinks released titanic amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, unleashing an environmental catastrophe. —Patricia Cohen Jes Aznar, New York Times, 14 Mar. 2024

This shift has improved soil health, cut cropland erosion and advanced the ability of soil to act as a crucial carbon sink. —Magi Richani, Forbes, 26 Feb. 2024

Losing a large portion of the Amazon could turn a key carbon sink into a source of emissions, as wildfires burn and plants and animals decompose, no longer able to survive. —Evan Bush, NBC News, 14 Feb. 2024

This could mean the large-scale collapse of a biome that has for 65 million years has served as the Earth’s carbon sink, absorbing billions of tons of carbon while largely weathering changes in climate. —Andrew Jeong, Washington Post, 16 Feb. 2024

Notable examples of natural carbon sinks include forests and ecosystems like peatlands. —Simi Thambi​, Forbes, 16 Feb. 2024

But the forest is still a huge, crucial carbon sink. —Rosa Rahimi, CNN, 14 Feb. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1963, in the meaning defined above