The National Academies keeps ocean carbon removal's verification question open in its 2026 update

Whether marine carbon dioxide removal works is not, in the report's framing, a question technology answers alone. Viability cannot be determined by technological performance alone, it says. Whether and how these approaches develop will also depend on public acceptance, political and regulatory decisions, community considerations, and the environmental and social characteristics of the places where research or deployment occurs ^[10].

For anyone contracting to buy removal from an ocean project, one of the report's uncertainties is narrower and sharper than the rest. Net removal is the quantity a credit certifies, and the assessment does not treat it as reliably measurable yet, along with long-term and ecosystem-scale environmental effects ^[8]. The announcement of the report gave no figure for private money in the field and no bound on how large verification error currently runs.

The 2026 edition follows the 2022 research strategy by four years ^[3][18]. The Academies calls the series an independent, peer-reviewed resource meant to evolve as the field develops ^[3]. This installment came from its Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Standing Committee, sponsored by the Carbon to Sea Initiative and the National Academy of Sciences' George and Cynthia Mitchell Endowment for Sustainability Science Fund ^[11].

One of the field campaigns is run by a member of the committee. Adam Subhas, an associate scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, worked on the updated chapters ^[12]. His research covers marine carbon and alkalinity cycles and the biogeochemical processes that determine how carbon is exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere ^[13]. LOC-NESS, the project he leads, examines the effectiveness and environmental impacts of ocean alkalinity enhancement through field experiments, ocean modeling, laboratory studies and monitoring ^[14]. The team reported preliminary findings from its Gulf of Maine work at the Ocean Sciences Meeting earlier this year ^[15].

"The scientific landscape of marine carbon dioxide removal is changing quickly," Subhas said ^[16]. The update, he said, "provides an important opportunity to take stock of what we have learned since 2022, what has become clearer, what remains uncertain, and where additional research is most urgently needed" ^[17].

The report's affirmative claim is a conditional one. If marine CDR is demonstrated to be feasible and responsible, it could supplement reductions in greenhouse gas emissions ^[6].