mmaheigan :: Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry

Studying marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles in the face of environmental change

Author Archive for mmaheigan

When marine-terminating glaciers ‘pump’ the ocean

Posted by mmaheigan

· Wednesday, October 10th, 2018

How will increasing meltwater from Greenland affect the biogeochemistry of the ocean? Release of meltwater into the ocean has physical and biogeochemical effects on the local water column. With respect to nutrient availability, meltwater supplies the bioessential nutrients iron and silicic acid but is deficient in nitrate and phosphate. However, despite very low meltwater nitrate and phosphate concentrations, pronounced summertime phytoplankton blooms are observed in many, though not all, of Greenland’s large fjord systems. These unusual summertime blooms are associated with meltwater from marine-terminating glaciers. So if the meltwater itself is not supplying nitrate and phosphate that these blooms require, what is the source of the nutrients that support these blooms?

An illustration of how changing the depth of a glacier affects downstream productivity

A recent study published in Nature Communications shows that when meltwater is released below sea level under large marine-terminating glaciers, it rises rapidly towards the surface in buoyant discharge plumes. As these plumes rise, they entrain large quantities of deep, nutrient-rich seawater. This vertical transport, or ‘pumping’, of these nutrients to the surface sustains unusually high summertime productivity in Greenland’s fjords. Conversely, when meltwater is released at the ocean surface, primary production is reduced because the meltwater itself lacks the nitrate and phosphate required to fuel phytoplankton blooms. Consequently, the inland retreat of Greenland’s large marine-terminating glaciers is ultimately bad news for summertime marine phytoplankton communities. As the depth of the marine-terminating glaciers shoals, their associated nutrient ‘pumps’ collapse, which will likely have negative effects on primary production and associated inshore fisheries.

Authors:
M.J. Hopwood (GEOMAR)
D. Carroll (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
T.J. Browning (GEOMAR)
L. Meire (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and Greenland Climate Research Centre)
J. Mortensen (Greenland Climate Research Centre)
S. Krisch (GEOMAR)
E.P. Achterberg (GEOMAR)

Primary productivity à la mode

Posted by mmaheigan

· Wednesday, October 10th, 2018

The presence of large-scale Ekman downwelling is the textbook explanation for low nutrient concentrations, and hence low productivity, in subtropical gyres. However, recent research has suggested that mesoscale eddies oppose and substantially reduce this downwelling, a process known as eddy cancellation (Doddridge et al, 2016). Eddy cancellation represents a substantial alteration to the widely accepted notion of large-scale Ekman downwelling in subtropical gyres, and motivates our study of the processes that determine nutrient concentration within subtropical gyres.

Figure 1: Sensitivity experiments for mode water thickness (h_mode) with two values of residual Ekman pumping. a) With no residual Ekman pumping, phosphate concentration responds strongly to mode water thickness. b) When Ekman pumping is strong, phosphate concentration does not depend on mode water thickness. The dashed lines represent transects of climatological phosphate concentration in the euphotic zone of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre (Garcia et al., 2013).

A recent paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans and featured in an MIT News article describes an idealized model for nutrient concentration in subtropical gyres that can account for this reduction in Ekman pumping. The model predicts that surface productivity is sensitive to the thickness of the underlying subtropical mode water layer, provided that the residual Ekman pumping is small (Figure 1). Comparison of this prediction with observations from the Bermuda Atlantic Time series Study (BATS) shows that surface productivity increases as the thickness of the underlying mode water increases (Figure 2), as predicted by the idealized model in the absence of substantial Ekman pumping.

Figure 2: Annually averaged primary productivity and mode water thickness from the BATS dataset. The linear fit between mode water thickness and primary productivity is statistically significant (p ≈ 0.027) and explains 19.5% of the variance in primary productivity.

The observed relationship between productivity and mode water thickness at BATS is consistent with a small residual Ekman pumping, indicating highly effective eddy cancellation in the subtropical North Atlantic. Previous research (Palter et al., 2005) has suggested that as the subtropical mode water layer thickens, it blocks nutrient entrainment from below, resulting in lower productivity in the euphotic zone. However, this study suggests that a thicker subtropical mode water layer actually increases the surface nutrient concentrations by promoting more effective recycling of nutrients within the gyre. With a thicker mode water layer, more of the nutrients in the particulate flux are remineralized before they pass through the thermocline and become isolated from the surface ocean. This means that a thicker mode water layer leads to higher nutrient concentrations and supports primary productivity in subtropical gyres. This represents a fundamental change in our understanding of how nutrients are supplied to the surface waters of subtropical gyres.

Authors:
Edward Doddridge (Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT)
David Marshall (Atmospheric, Oceanic & Planetary Physics, University of Oxford)

2019 OCB Activity Solicitation

Posted by mmaheigan

· Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018

2019 OCB Activity Solicitation

The Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) Program is soliciting proposals for OCB activities that will take place or begin during the 2019 calendar year. We seek proposals for OCB-relevant workshops and activities….Read More

Ocean Carbon Exchange

Posted by mmaheigan

· Thursday, September 27th, 2018

Find jobs, read news from the OCB Project Office and OCB Community, view upcoming meeting and deadlines in the Ocean Carbon Exchange eNewsletter, sent every other Thursday. Click to read the latest issue or sign up here. Note, this eNewsletter replaces the ocb-all email listserv. The Ocean Carbon Exchange archive is available here. Please send announcements to ocb_news@whoi.edu.

Improved method to identify and reduce uncertainties in marine carbon cycle predictions

Posted by mmaheigan

· Wednesday, September 26th, 2018

Improved method to identify and reduce uncertainties in marine carbon cycle predictions

How well do contemporary Earth System Models (ESMs) represent the dynamics of the modern day ocean? Often we question the fidelity of biological and chemical processes represented in these ESMs. The fact is representations of biogeochemical processes in models are plagued with some degree of uncertainties; therefore, identifying and reducing such deficiencies could advance ESM development and improve model predictions.

An overview of several models with respect to each of the variables, using absolute (left) and relative (right) scores to determine the degree of uncertainty in relation to referenced datasets.

A recent publication in Atmosphere described the ongoing efforts to develop the International Ocean Model Benchmarking (IOMB) package to evaluate ESM skill sets in simulating marine biogeochemical variables and processes. Model performances were scored based on how well they captured the distribution and variability contained in high-quality observational datasets. The authors highlighted systematic model–data benchmarking as a technique to identify ocean model deficiencies, which could provide a pathway to improving representations of sub-grid-scale parameterizations. They have scaled the absolute score from zero to unity, where the red color tends toward zero to quantify weaknesses in the skill set of a particular model in capturing values from the observational datasets. On the other side of the spectrum, the green color signifies considerable temporal and spatial overlap between the predicted and the observational values. The authors also present the standard score to show the relative scores within two standard deviations from the model mean. The benchmarking package was employed in the published study to assess marine biogeochemical process representations, with a focus on surface ocean concentrations and sea–air fluxes of dimethylsulfide (DMS). The production and emission of natural aerosols remain one of the major limitations in estimating global radiative forcing. Appropriate representation of aerosols in the marine boundary layer (MBL) is essential to reduce uncertainty and provide reliable information on offsets to global warming. Results show that model–data biases increased as DMS enters the MBL, with models over-predicting sea surface concentrations in the productive region of the eastern tropical Pacific by almost a factor of two and the sea–air fluxes by a factor of three. The associated uncertainties with oceanic carbon cycle processes may be additive or antagonistic; in any case, a constructive effort to disentangle the subtleties begins with an objective benchmarking effort, which is focused specifically on marine biogeochemical processes. The tool in development will ensure we satisfy some of the Model Intercomparison Project (MIP) benchmarking needs for the sixth phase of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6).

Authors:
Oluwaseun Ogunro (ORNL)
Scott Elliott (LANL)
Oliver Wingenter (New Mexico Tech)
Clara Deal (University of Alaska)
Weiwei Fu (UC Irvine)
Nathan Collier (ORNL)
Forrest M. Hoffman (ORNL)

Physics shed new light on microbial filter-feeding

Posted by mmaheigan

· Wednesday, September 26th, 2018

Microbial filter-feeders actively filter water for bacteria-sized prey, but hydrodynamic theory predicts that their filtration rate should be one order of magnitude lower than what they realize. What is missing in our knowledge and modeling of these key components of aquatic food webs?

In a recent study published in PNAS, Nielsen et al. (2017) used a combination of microscopy observations, particle tracking, and analytical and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to shed light on the physics of microbial filter-feeding. They found that analytical and computational fluid dynamic estimates agree that the observed filtration rate cannot be realized given the known morphology and flagellum kinematics. The estimates consistently fall one order of magnitude short of observed filtration rates. This led the authors to suggest that their study organism, the choanoflagellate Diaphanoeca grandis, has a so-called ‘flagellar vane’, a sheet-like extension of the flagellum seen in some members of the choanoflagellate sister group, the marine sponges. This structure would fundamentally change the physics of the filtration process, and the authors found that both the analytical and the computational estimates match observed filtration rates when such a structure is included.

Left: Choanoflagellate model morphology showing the protoplast (cell) in orange, the filter comprised of microvilli (black), the lorica and chimney (red) and the flagellum with vane (blue). Right: Experimentally observed near-cell flow field vs. flow field modelled using computational fluid dynamics including a flagellar vane. The filter cross-section is here shown in green. The modelled flow field provides a good match with the observed flow field. Without a flagellar vane, the model flow field is at least an order of magnitude weaker. This leads to the suggestion that a flagellar vane is needed to account for the observed flow field and clearance rate.

The new insights allow the authors to generalize about the trade-offs involved in microbial filtering, which is important to our understanding of the microbial loop in planktonic food webs. The results are of even wider interest since choanoflagellates are believed to be the evolutionary ancestors of all multicellular animals, many of which include cells that are fundamentally identical to choanoflagellates (e.g., the simple cuboidal epithelium cells of kidneys). Thus, microscale filtering not only happens in every single drop of seawater, it also happens inside most animals.

Learn more here.

Authors:
Lasse Tor Nielsen (National Institute of Aquatic Resources and Centre for Ocean Life, Technical University of Denmark)
Seyed Saeed Asadzadeh (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark)
Julia Dölger (Department of Physics and Centre for Ocean Life, Technical University of Denmark)
Jens H. Walther (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich, ETH Zentrum)
Thomas Kiørboe (National Institute of Aquatic Resources and Centre for Ocean Life, Technical University of Denmark)
Anders Andersen (Department of Physics and Centre for Ocean Life, Technical University of Denmark)

Shelf-wide pCO2 increase across the South Atlantic Bight

Posted by mmaheigan

· Thursday, August 2nd, 2018

Relative to their surface area, coastal regions represent some of the largest carbon fluxes in the global ocean, driven by numerous physical, chemical and biological processes. Coastal systems also experience human impacts that affect carbon cycling, which has large socioeconomic implications. The highly dynamic nature of these systems necessitates observing approaches and numerical methods that can both capture high-frequency variability and delineate long-term trends.

Figure 1: The South Atlantic Bight (SAB) was divided into four sections using isobaths: the coastal zone (0 to 15 m), the inner shelf (15 to 30 m), the middle shelf (30 to 60 m), and the outer shelf (60 m and beyond). The X’s indicate the locations of the Gray’s Reef mooring (southern X) and the Edisto mooring (northern X).

In two recent studies using mooring- and ship-based ocean CO₂ system data, authors observed that pCO₂ is increasing from the coastal zone to the outer shelf of the South Atlantic Bight at rates greater than the global average oceanic and atmospheric increase (~1.8 µatm y^-1). In recent publications in Continental Shelf Research and JGR-Oceans, the authors analyzed pCO₂ data from 46 cruises (1991-2016) using a novel linear regression technique to remove the seasonal signal, revealing an increase in pCO₂ of 3.0-3.7 µatm y^-1on the outer and inner shelf, respectively. Using a Generalized Additive Mixed Model (GAMM) approach for trend analysis, authors observed that the rates of increase were slightly higher than the deseasonalization technique, yielding pCO₂ increases of 3.3 to 4.5 µatm y^-1 on the outer and inner shelf, respectively. The reported pCO₂ increases result in potential pH decreases of -0.003 to -0.004 units y^-1.

Figure 2: The time series of fCO2 in the four regions of the SAB (cruise observations) and from the Gray’s Reef mooring on the inner shelf indicate an increase across the shelf. These data are the observed values, however, the trend lines for each time series are calculated using deseasonalized values using the reference year method.

Analysis of the pCO₂ time-series from the Gray’s Reef mooring (using a NOAA Moored Autonomous pCO₂ system from July 2006 -July 2015) yielded a rate of increase (3.5 ± 0.9 µatm y^-1) that was comparable to the cruise data on the inner shelf (3.7 ± 2.2 and 4.5 ± 0.6 µatm y^-1, linear and GAMM methods, respectively). Validation data collected at the mooring suggest that underway data from cruises and the moored data are comparable. Neither thermal processes nor atmospheric dissolution (the primary driver of oceanic acidification) can explain the observed pCO₂ increase and concurrent pH decrease across the shelf. Unlike the middle and outer shelves, where an increase in SST could account for up to 1.1 µatm y^-1 of the observed pCO₂ trend, there is no thermal influence in the coastal zone and inner shelf. While 1.8 µatm y^-1 could be attributed to the global average atmospheric increase, the remainder is likely due to transport from coastal marshes and in situ biological processes. As the authors have shown, the increasing coastal and oceanic trend in pCO₂ can lead to a decrease in pH, especially if there is no increase in buffering capacity. More acidic waters can have a long term affect on coastal ecosystem services and biota.

Also see Eos Editor’s Vox on this research by Peter Brewer https://eos.org/editors-vox/coastal-ocean-warming-adds-to-co2-burden

Authors:

Multidecadal fCO2 Increase Along the United States Southeast Coastal Margin (JGR-Oceans)
Janet J. Reimer (University of Delaware)
Hongjie Wang (Texas A &M University – Corpus Christi)
Rodrigo Vargas (University of Delaware)
Wei-Jun Cai (University of Delaware)

And

Time series pCO2 at a coastal mooring: Internal consistency, seasonal cycles, and interannual variability (Continental Shelf Research)
Janet J. Reimer (University of Delaware)
Wei-Jun Cai (University of Delaware; University of Georgia)
Liang Xue (University of Delaware; First Institute of Oceanography, China)
Rodrigo Vargas (University of Delaware)
Scott Noakes (University of Georgia)
Xinping Hu (Texas A &M University – Corpus Christi)
Sergio R. Signorini (Science Applications International Corporation)
Jeremy T. Mathis (NOAA Arctic Research Program)
Richard A. Feely (NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory)
Adrienne J. Sutton (NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory; University of Washington)
Christopher Sabine (University of Hawaii Manoa)
Sylvia Musielewicz (NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory; University of Washington)
Baoshan Chen (University of Delaware; University of Georgia)
Rik Wanninkhof (NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory)

New report published on U.S. contributions to the 2nd International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE-2)

Posted by mmaheigan

· Thursday, August 2nd, 2018

A new report entitled United States Contributions to the Second International Indian Ocean Expedition (U.S. IIOE-2) summarizes discussions that took place during an Indian Ocean community workshop co-sponsored by OCB in September 2017 (La Jolla, CA). The purpose of this document is to motivate and coordinate U.S. participation in IIOE-2 by outlining a core set of research priorities that will accelerate our understanding of geologic, oceanic, and atmospheric processes and their interactions in the Indian Ocean.

Marine Biodiversity Workshop: From the Sea to the Cloud – Pole to Pole MBON of the Americas (P2P)

Posted by mmaheigan

· Tuesday, July 24th, 2018

Marine Biodiversity Workshop: From the Sea to the Cloud – Pole to Pole MBON of the Americas (P2P)

Twenty-five researchers from the Americas have been selected to participate in a five-day training program offered by the Pole to Pole Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) of the Americas (P2P) and AmeriGEOSS. The workshop includes marine scientists working on coastal ecology from pole to pole. The program will focus on marine biodiversity activities in the field and behind the computer, promoting a community of best practices and data sharing. Specifically, participants of this training program will:

Collect field data across multiple habitats, including rocky intertidal and sandy beach habitats
Manipulate tabular and spatial data to develop standardized data formats such as Darwin Core while controlling for quality
Publish datasets to the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) using tools for sharing data
Train on data science tools (R, Rmarkdown, Github) to mine data, conduct discovery and analysis, and generate reproducible research documents with interactive visualizations on the web
Illustrate the process of submitting and editing Best Practices (field methods, analyses, metadata) of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Ocean Best Practices (Ocean Best Practices Repository: https://www.oceanbestpractices.net/)

Workshop goals
This workshop is a foundational step in the implementation of the P2P network. Participants will develop standard protocols for field data collection, data formatting, and publishing following international standards (e.g., Darwin Core – DwC). The ultimate goal is to develop a network that helps nations and regions to improve conservation planning and environmental impact mitigation, serve the scientific community, and satisfy commitments to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Aichi Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by:

enhancing coordination of data collection among nations;
improving the collection of harmonized data, developing data standards and methodologies for data management and dissemination without compromising national concerns (i.e. use and contribute to Best Practices for the measurement and curation of Essential Ocean Variables and Essential Biodiversity Variables);
integrating biodiversity information with physical and chemical data over time (status and trends); and
generating products needed for informed management of the ocean.

This activity will train participants from 10 countries in the Americas from Canada to Patagonia in methodological approaches for assessing biodiversity of rocky intertidal areas and sandy beaches, collecting environmental data to evaluate drivers of biodiversity change in these habitats. This effort will enhance capacity in geospatial data analysis and visualization using R software, and data formatting and sharing via the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS). Instructors facilitating training efforts in these various topics include:

Enrique Montes (USA; P2P lead at USF)
Gil Rilov (Israel; National Institute of Oceanography)
Antonio Marques (Brazil; CEBIMar)
Augusto Flores (Brazil; CEBIMar)
Maikon Di Domenico (Brazil; Universidade Federal do Paraná)
Patricia Miloslavich (Australia; U. Tasmania / GOOS)
Eduardo Klein (OBIS)
Frank Muller-Karger (USA; USF)
Emmett Duffy (USA; Smithsonian I.)
Ben Best (USA; EcoQuants)
Fernando Lima (Portugal; University of Porto)
Brian Helmuth (USA; Northeastern University)

The P2P workshop is supported by NASA and will be hosted by the Center for Marine Biology (CEBIMar) of the University of São Paulo in Praia do Segredo, São Sebastião, São Paulo, Brazil.

Workshop details are available at https://marinebon.github.io/p2p-brazil-workshop/.

To learn more about MBON, please visit the MBON website.

Marine Snowfall at the Equator

Posted by mmaheigan

· Thursday, July 19th, 2018

The continual flow of organic particles such as dead organisms and fecal material towards the deep sea is called “marine snow,” and it plays an important role in the ocean carbon cycle and climate-related processes. This snowfall is most intense where high primary production can be observed near the surface. This is the case along the equator in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. However, it is not well known how particles are distributed at depth and which processes influence this distribution. A recent study published in Nature Geoscience involved the use of high-resolution particle density data using the Underwater Vision Profiler (UVP) from the equatorial Atlantic and Pacific Oceans down to a depth of 5,000 meters, revealing that several previously accepted ideas on the downward flux of particles into the deep sea should be revisited.

Figure 1. The Underwater Vision Profiler (UVP) during a trial in the Kiel Fjord. The UVP provided crucial data for the new study. Photo: Rainer Kiko, GEOMAR

It is typically assumed that the largest particle density can be found close to the surface and that density attenuates continuously with depth. However, high-resolution particle data show that density increases again in the 300-600-meter depth range. The authors attribute this observation to the daily migratory behavior of organisms such as zooplankton that retreat to these depths during the day, contributing to the particle load via defecation and mortality.

Another surprising result is the observation of many small particles below 1,000 meters depth that contribute a large fraction of the bathypelagic particle flux. This observation counters the general assumption, especially in many biogeochemical models, that particle flux at depth comprises fast sinking particles such as fecal pellets. Diminished remineralization rates of small particles or increased disaggregation of larger particles may contribute to the elevated small particle fluxes at this depth.

Figure 2. Zonal current velocity and Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) content across the equatorial Atlantic at 23˚W as observed in November 2012. From left to right: Zonal current velocity, POC content in small particle fraction and POC content in large particle fraction (adapted from Kiko et al. 2017).

This study highlights the importance of coupled biological and physical processes in understanding and quantifying the biological carbon pump. Further work on this important topic can now also be submitted to the new Frontiers in Marine Science research topic “Zooplankton and Nekton: Gatekeepers of the Biological Pump” (https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/8114/zooplankton-and-nekton-gatekeepers-of-the-biological-pump; Co-editors R. Kiko, M. Iversen, A. Maas, H. Hauss and D. Bianchi). The research topic welcomes a broad range of contributions, from individual-based process studies, to local and global field observations, to modeling approaches to better characterize the role of zooplankton and nekton for the biological pump.

Authors:
R. Kiko (GEOMAR)
A. Biastoch (GEOMAR)
P. Brandt (GEOMAR, University of Kiel)
S. Cravatte (LEGOS, University of Toulouse)
H. Hauss (GEOMAR)
R. Hummels (GEOMAR)
I. Kriest (GEOMAR)
F. Marin (LEGOS, University of Toulouse)
A. M. P. McDonnell (University of Alaska Fairbanks)
A. Oschlies (GEOMAR)
M. Picheral (Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche-sur-Mer, Observatoire Océanologique)
F. U. Schwarzkopf (GEOMAR)
A. M. Thurnherr (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,)
L. Stemmann (Sorbonne Universités, Observatoire Océanologique)

Funding for the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry Project Office is provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The OCB Project Office is housed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Author Archive for mmaheigan

2019 OCB Activity Solicitation

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