Sinking boreal trees in the deep Arctic Ocean could remove billions of tons of carbon each year - Earth & Earth Sciences - Environment

Arctic amplification and driftwood solution. Credit: npj Climate Action (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s44168-025-00327-1

Global efforts to reduce pollution will not be enough to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, scientists say. We will also need to extract over 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year for the next century. However, currently only two gigatons are being removed annually, so we have to rapidly scale up existing methods or come up with new ideas.

A recent paper published in the journal npj Climate Action proposes a novel nature-inspired solution, which is to sink timber from boreal forests deep into the Arctic Ocean.

Trees are excellent at capturing carbon through photosynthesis, turning the gas into wood as they grow. However, when they rot, die, or are destroyed by fire, the stored carbon is released right back into the atmosphere.

Floating logs

This is the problem that Ulf Büntgen from Cambridge University and colleagues are trying to solve. Their big idea is to chop down specific plots of boreal forests in Russia, Canada and Alaska and float the logs down Arctic rivers to the ocean. These mature trees are at high risk of forest fires and store carbon less efficiently than younger trees.

Once in the Arctic Ocean, the team suggests sinking the timber to the ocean floor, where it would remain preserved for thousands of years. They argue this is an excellent location because the deepwater is extremely cold and low in oxygen (so the bacteria and fungi that eat wood can't survive), which may prevent the wood from rotting. The final part of the plan is to immediately plant the harvested forest areas with new trees to restart the carbon-capturing cycle.

The scientists used computer models to see how their idea would play out in the real world. They calculated that if just 1% of boreal forest were managed this way, we could remove 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide every year.

"We suggest further exploration of the potential of harvesting and rafting large quantities of boreal timber into the Arctic Ocean for CO₂ removal and multi-millennial scale storage," commented the study authors in their paper.

Potential challenges

While the calculations look promising, the researchers also point out a few cultural, environmental and geopolitical hurdles that may complicate matters. These include whether sinking millions of logs would harm creatures living on the ocean floor, the rights of Indigenous peoples who live and manage these forests and how different countries would share the carbon credits. 

by Paul Arnold, Phys.org

edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan 

Source: Sinking boreal trees in the deep Arctic Ocean could remove billions of tons of carbon each year