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

Even as Brazil slows deforestation, more than 13% of the Amazon is gone, pushing one of the planet’s largest carbon sinks closer to a tipping point. —Felicia Jackson, Forbes.com, 17 Sep. 2025

Forests, the largest terrestrial carbon sinks in the world, are part of the solution. —Ryan Gellert, Time, 9 Sep. 2025

But over the past 50 years, ecologists have come to value wetlands not only as wildlife habitats but also as carbon sinks, defenses against rising seas, and filters for harmful pollutants. —Kyra Morris, The Atlantic, 22 Aug. 2025

Yet as temperatures and fire risk both rise, that creates the risk that the forests go from being a carbon sink to a source of planet-warming emissions. —Bloomberg, Mercury News, 13 Aug. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1963, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for carbon sink

• bobolink
• countersink
• bethink
• downlink
• groupthink
• hoodwink
• rethink
• uplink
• blink
• brink
• chink
• cinque