Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry

OCB Supports Early Career Participants in Cornell Satellite Remote Sensing Training Program 2026

Colby Dernis is an incoming M.S. student in the Jarvis Coastal Plant Ecology Lab at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His research focuses on integrating satellite remote sensing with ecological field methods to better understand and monitor vulnerable coastal and marine ecosystems. As an undergraduate at the University of Florida, he conducted research on […]

Ocean scientist dialogs on NSF Ocean Observing DCL starting next week

OCB to co-host community dialogs on ocean observing to encourage many community response submissions The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is requesting perspectives on what ocean observation capabilities it should provide. The agency recently issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) seeking public input on priorities, strategies, and technologies for future ocean observing systems that effectively support scientific needs […]

2026 Call for OCB Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) nominations

OCB is seeking nominations for new Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) members. The term begins January 1, 2027. The following SSC members are scheduled to rotate off at the end of 2026: Kristen Krumhardt (NCAR) – ocean ecosystem modeling, Southern Ocean ecosystem dynamics Kanchan Maiti (Louisiana State Univ.) – biogeochemical cycling along aquatic continuum, deep ocean […]

Apply by Oct 5 to the OCB Workshop on Marine Viruses

OCB WORKSHOP From single cells to ecosystems: Quantifying the role of marine viruses in carbon transport models February 8-10, Grand Galvez Hotel, Galveston, Texas (hybrid) Viruses are a ubiquitous and integral component of Earth’s ecosystems, including marine microbial communities. Virally mediated mechanisms play a central role in carbon cycling and export processes. Despite their known […]

2027 OCB Activity Proposal Solicitation – deadline Oct 26

The Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) Program is soliciting proposals for OCB activities that will take place or begin during the 2027 calendar year. In the coming year, we are able to support 1 topical workshop (to take place in summer or fall 2027) and 2-3 hub and/or small group activities. We seek proposals for OCB-relevant workshops and […]

Submit ideas for OCB2027 plenary sessions

OCB2027: June 22-25, 2027 (Woods Hole, MA) Please submit your plenary session ideas by October 5!

New report: FAIR Data for Ocean Time Series

Since the early to mid-20th century, shipboard marine ecological time series (METS), or sustained repeat measurements of physical, biogeochemical, and biological processes, have documented changes in ocean biogeochemistry and marine ecosystems. To date, numerous disconnected databases and interfaces for accessing data have made it difficult for prospective users to find and use these datasets. Limited […]

Celebrating 20 years of OCB + OCB2027 dates

2026 marks 20 years since the OCB Project Office began in 2006 to support science, community, and connection across a globally distributed network of scientists! To celebrate all the accomplishments of the community across these two decades, OCB is convening a one-day virtual symposium on November 18, 2026. The symposium will highlight scientific discoveries, game-changing […]

Register for the 7th DMS(P) Symposium: Sulfur Carbon Nexus in the SOLAS Sphere

A joint workshop with SCOR, SOLAS, and Schmidt Sciences: Climate October 12-15, 2026 in person at Bigelow Laboratory (Boothbay Harbor, Maine) and online. The organosulfur compound dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) ignited an entire subfield of biogeochemistry to investigate the precursor of the “anti-greenhouse gas” dimethylsulfide (DMS). Since then, decades of research have unveiled the importance of DMS(P), […]

Recent Science Highlights

Arctic fjord fungi help lock carbon into the seafloor

What determines whether freshly produced organic carbon is stored in Arctic fjord sediments or quickly returned to the atmosphere as CO₂? While bacteria have long been considered the dominant microbial players in this process, the role of marine fungi has remained largely unexplored. We investigated microbial carbon cycling across Kongsfjorden, Svalbard, an arctic […]

Taking a Ride on the C-SAW

Those of us working across the land-ocean aquatic continuum (LOAC), aka the terrestrial-aquatic interface (TAI), aka estuaries and coastal waters, often note that our estuaries and coastal waters tend to get darker after large rain events. The “darkness” comes from substances that absorb and scatter light and a good portion of these materials are collectively […]

Figure 1: Conceptual diagram: (a) The fluffy aggregate flux pathway, where high surface chlorophyll-a waters show elevated abundance of large fluffy aggregates and grazers at the surface. Fluffy aggregates sink into the deeper ocean and down to the seafloor. (b) The zooplankton-mediated flux pathway, where high abundance of crustacean grazers in the lower mesopelagic also has elevated small particle abundance from sloppy feeding. An increasing abundance of fecal pellets and degraded fecal pellets was observed in the abyssopelagic zone. Relative and total abundance of different types of detrital particles averaged over different depth bins from the (c) fluffy aggregate flux pathway and (d) zooplankton-mediated flux pathway and different types of crustaceans in (e) and (f), respectively. (g) Highlights example images of copepods in actively feeding posture from 500 to 1000 m in the zooplankton-mediated flux pathway.

Sinking phytodetrital aggregates and fecal pellets produced by mesopelagic crustaceans seed deep-sea particle communities in the Southern Ocean

How do processes in the sub-surface ocean (500 – 1000 m) impact particle communities that sink into the deep ocean (> 3000 m)? We highlight two observed pathways of particle flux to the deep sea from two ocean basin-wide cruises in the Southern Ocean sampled with an Underwater Vision Profiler (UVP5), which is an underwater […]

The North Atlantic’s microscopic carbon traffic controllers

Each year, as the North Atlantic transitions from turbulent spring mixing to layered summer stratification, a key question emerges: How do these seasonal changes reshape bacterial host-virus interactions and control carbon flux? In a recent study published in Microorganisms, researchers show that seasonal stratification regulates viral activity by modulating encounter rates between viruses and distinct […]

Impacts of warming and circulation slowdown on future ocean carbon cycle feedback

The ocean has absorbed a quarter of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, mitigating changes. However, predicting the future fate of this ‘sink’ is challenging as marine carbon is regulated by a complex set of interacting processes that respond differently to warming. Our recent study teases apart these interactions with a novel mechanistic carbon decomposition and attribution framework […]

Do ecological feedbacks matter in a changing world?

Interactions among organisms shape ecological dynamics, while exchanges with the environment alter physical and chemical conditions. Examples of these include predator-prey dynamics (biotic interaction), the release of nutrients through excretion (chemical changes), or the development of coral reefs (physical changes). Together, these processes can generate feedback loops, which may amplify or buffer the impacts of […]

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