Online Session: BG 4.1: Biogeochemistry of coastal seas and continental shelves - including a brief overview of the French-German MOPGA Initiative

The coastal ocean has been increasingly recognized as a dynamic component of the global carbon budget. This session aims at fostering our understanding of the roles of coastal environments and of exchange processes, both natural or perturbed, along the terrestrial / coastal sea / open ocean continuum in global biogeochemical cycles. During the session recent advancements in the field of coastal and shelf biogeochemistry will be discussed. Contributions focusing on carbon and nutrient and all other element's cycles in coastal, shelf and shelf break environments, both pelagic and sedimentary, are invited.

This session is multidisciplinary and is open to observational, modelling and theoretical studies in order to promote the dialogue. The session will comprise subsections on coastal carbon storage, and on benthic biogeochemical processes.

This year the session comprises a subsection focusing on the Franco-German "Make Our Planet Great Again" (MOPGA) research initiative, which uses Earth system science to understand climate change and its impacts: At the 2015 Paris COP21 climate conference, 195 countries committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and make efforts to significantly limit man-made global warming to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. France and Germany joined forces in this fight against global warming by creating the "Make Our Planet Great Again" research initiative covering research in Earth system science that aims to better understand climate change and its impacts on natural and socio-economic systems. In this interdisciplinary session, we welcome data- and model-based research undertaken within, but also outside this international initiative, that provides new insights into the mechanisms of past, present and future climate changes and the associated impacts on the oceans, the cryosphere, coastal regions, and terrestrial systems. Innovative research contributions that can lead towards the ultimate goals of the Paris Agreement ranging from basic research to solution-oriented research are also encouraged.