Ocean-based carbon dioxide removal: Role of standards, best practices and systems engineering

Large-scale removal and sequestration of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be necessary in the near future to keep global average temperature increase below 2 degrees by 2100. Several ocean-based carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) methods were recently assessed by the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine as potentially effective ways to achieve this goal, but must be evaluated further. The stakes for our civilization are high and time is of the essence, so rigorous protocols must be defined to ensure safe, accurate and effective evaluation, implementation, and monitoring of mCDR approaches. Measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems will utilize sensors and models to assess mCDR methods, and will provide means to assign monetary value to carbon removed by commercial entities. Given the high risks and societal and monetary costs of mCDR, MRV data must be trusted and defensible. We discuss how standards, best practices, and systems engineering can help ensure MRV data that are sufficiently accurate, precise, and traceable. We examine how those approaches are used by three existing highly successful state-of-the-art environmental monitoring systems; the Argo/GO-BGC float array, the Integrated Ocean Observing System, and the World Meteorological Organization’s carbon dioxide monitoring program. We discuss how these systems provide useful examples to mCDR MRV development, and suggest some next steps.