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Archive for biological pump – Page 4

Industrial era climate forcing drives multi-century decline in North Atlantic productivity

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019 

Phytoplankton respond directly to climate forcing, and due to their central role in global oxygen production and atmospheric carbon sequestration, they are critical components of the Earth’s climate system. There are however few observations detailing past variability in marine primary productivity, particularly over multi-decadal to centennial timescales. This limits our understanding of the long-term impact of climatic forcing on both past and future marine productivity.

Multi-century decline of subarctic Atlantic productivity. From top: standardized (z-score units relative to ad 1958-2016) indices of Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR)-based diatom, dinoflagellate and coccolithophore relative-abundances; North Atlantic [chlorophyll-α] reconstruction from Boyce et al. (2010, Nature); ice core-based [MSA] PC1 productivity index. The “Industrial Onset” range shows the estimated initiation of declining subarctic Atlantic productivity; reconstructed (Rahmstorf et al., 2015, Nat. Clim. Change) and observed sea-surface temperature-based Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (i.e., AMOC) index, alongside 5-year averaged subarctic Atlantic freshwater storage anomalies (relative to A.D. 1955) from Curry and Mauritzen (2005; Science).

Authors of a new study published in Nature used a high-resolution signal of marine biogenic aerosol emissions (methanesulfonic acid, or “MSA”) preserved within twelve Greenland ice cores to reconstruct a ~250-year record of marine productivity variations across the subarctic Atlantic basin, one of the most biologically productive and climatically sensitive regions on Earth. These results provide the most continuous proxy-based reconstruction of basin-scale productivity to date in this region, illuminating the following major findings: (1) subarctic Atlantic marine productivity has declined over the industrial era by as much as 10 ± 7%; (2) the early 19th century onset of declining productivity coincides with the regional onset of industrial-era surface warming, and also strongly covaries with regional sea surface temperatures and basin-scale gyre circulation strength; (3) there is strong decadal- to centennial-scale coherence between northern Atlantic productivity variability and declining Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) strength, as predicted by prior model-based studies.

Future atmospheric warming is predicted to contribute to accelerating Greenland Ice Sheet runoff, ocean-surface freshening, and AMOC slowdown, suggesting the potential for continued declines in productivity across this dynamic and climatically important region. Such declines will, in turn, have important implications for future maritime economies, global food security, and drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

 

Authors:
Matthew Osman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Sarah Das (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Luke Trusel (Rowan University)
Matthew Evans (Wheaton College)
Hubertus Fischer (University of Bern)
Mackenzie Griemann (University of California, Irvine)
Sepp Kipfstuhl (Alfred-Wegener-Institute)
Joseph McConnell (Desert Research Institute)
Eric Saltzman (University of California, Irvine)

 

Figure references:
Boyce, D. G., Lewis, M. R. & Worm, B. (2010) Global phytoplankton decline over the past century. Nature 466, 591–596.

Curry, R. & Mauritzen, C. (2005) Dilution of the northern North Atlantic Ocean in recent decades. Science 308, 1772–1774.

Rahmstorf, S. et al. (2015) Exceptional twentieth-century slowdown in Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 475–480.

Can microzooplankton shape the depth distribution of phytoplankton?

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019 

Photosynthetic, single-celled phytoplankton form the base of many marine and lacustrine (lake) food webs. These microscopic algae typically occur in the sunlit surface layer, but in many ecosystems, there are also sub-surface peaks in phytoplankton and chlorophyll-a, their key photosynthetic pigment. Historically, scientists have explained deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM) formation by invoking “bottom-up” processes such as nutrient and light co-limitation, while less attention has been paid to “top-down” controls such as predation.

A recent study in Nature Communications challenges this conventional wisdom by arguing that microzooplankton (top-down control) can cause the formation of DCMs by preferentially consuming phytoplankton near the surface. This can occur when microzooplankton exhibit light-dependent grazing—a known but not well-understood phenomenon in which prey consumption rates increase with increasing light intensity. By incorporating this phenomenon into mathematical models, the authors showed that this can create a “spatial refuge” for phytoplankton in deeper, darker parts of the water column, where there is enough sunlight to photosynthesize, but too little for efficient microzooplankton predation. Furthermore, when light-dependent grazing is incorporated into a global ocean biogeochemistry model (COBALT: Carbon, Ocean Biogeochemistry and Lower Trophics – planktonic ecosystem model), DCMs that are already present due to bottom-up controls deepen, improving agreement between model predictions, satellite data, and in situ observations.

Figure legend: Global comparison of annual mean deep chlorophyll maxima (DCM) depths (A) predicted by the unmodified COBALT model, (B) predicted by the COBALT model modified to include light-dependent microzooplankton grazing, and (C) estimated based on satellite data. Incorporating light-dependent grazing deepens the DCM, especially in oligotrophic gyres, and improves agreement with observational data.

These findings highlight the importance of higher trophic levels in regulating aquatic primary productivity. The model predictions suggest that not only can microzooplankton suppress primary production near the surface, but by shifting phytoplankton abundances deeper, they may increase carbon export via the biological pump. Future field tests of this hypothesis—i.e. detailed grazing measurements in stratified water columns with DCMs—can elucidate the extent to which light-dependent grazing shapes phytoplankton distribution in real biological systems.

 

Authors:
Holly Moeller (University of California Santa Barbara)
Charlotte Laufkötter (University of Bern and Princeton University)
Edward Sweeney (Sea Education Association and Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History)
Matthew Johnson (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

The causes of the 90-ppm glacial atmospheric CO2 drawdown still strongly debated

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Tuesday, July 9th, 2019 

Joint feature with GEOTRACES

Figure: Illustration of the two main mechanisms identified by this study to explain lower atmospheric CO2 during glacial periods. Left: present-day conditions; right: conditions around 19,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. The obvious explanation for lower CO2 during glacial periods – cooler ocean temperatures (darker blue shade) making CO2 more soluble, much as a glass of sparkling wine will remain fizzier for longer when it is colder – has long been dismissed as not being a significant factor. However, previous calculations assumed that the ocean cooled uniformly and was saturated in dissolved CO2. The model, consistent with reconstructions of sea surface temperature, predicts more cooling at mid latitudes compared with polar regions and also accounts for undersaturation. This nearly doubles the effect of temperature change and accounts for almost half the 90 ppm glacial-interglacial atmospheric CO2 difference. Another quarter is explained in this model by increased growth of marine algae (green blobs and inset) in the waters off Antarctica. Algae absorb CO2 from the atmosphere during photosynthesis and “pump” it into the deep ocean when they die and sink. But their growth in the present-day ocean, especially the waters off Antarctica, is limited by the availability of iron, an essential micronutrient primarily supplied by wind-borne dust. In our model an increased supply of iron to the Southern Ocean, likely originating from Patagonia, Australia and New Zealand, enhances their growth and sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere. This “fertilization” effect was greatly underestimated by previous studies. The study also finds that, contrary to the current consensus, a large expansion of sea ice off Antarctica and reconfiguration of ocean circulation may have played only a minor role in glacial-interglacial CO2 changes. Credit: Illustration by Andrew Orkney, University of Oxford.

Using an observationally constrained earth system model, S. Khatiwala and co-workers compare different processes that could lead to the 90-ppm glacial atmospheric CO2 drawdown, with an important improvement on the deep carbon storage quantification (i.e. Biological Carbon Pump efficiency). They demonstrate that circulation and sea ice changes had only a modest net effect on glacial ocean carbon storage and atmospheric CO2, whereas temperature and iron input effects were more important than previously thought due to their effects on disequilibrium carbon storage.

Authors:
Samar Khatiwala (University of Oxford, UK)
Andreas Schmittner and Juan Muglia (Oregon State University)

Upwelled hydrothermal Fe stimulates massive phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Tuesday, July 9th, 2019 

Joint feature with GEOTRACES

Figure 1a: Southern Ocean phytoplankton blooms showing distribution, biomass (circle size) and type (color key).

In a recent study, Ardyna et al combined observations of profiling floats with historical trace element data and satellite altimetry and ocean color data from the Southern Ocean to reveal that dissolved iron of hydrothermal origin can be upwelled to the surface. Furthermore, the activity of deep hydrothermal sources can influence upper ocean biogeochemical cycles of the Southern Ocean, and in particular stimulate the biological carbon pump.

Authors:
Mathieu Ardyna
Léo Lacour
Sara Sergi
Francesco d’Ovidio
Jean-Baptiste Sallée
Mathieu Rembauville
Stéphane Blain
Alessandro Tagliabue
Reiner Schlitzer
Catherine Jeandel
Kevin Robert Arrigo
Hervé Claustre

Zooplankton-fueled carbon export is changing in the North Atlantic Ocean

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Monday, June 10th, 2019 

Zooplankton-mediated carbon export is an important, but variable and relatively unconstrained part of the biological carbon pump—the processes that fix atmospheric carbon dioxide in organic material and transport it from the upper sunlit ocean to depth. Changes in the biological pump impact the climate system, but are challenging to quantify because such analyses require spatially and temporally explicit information about biological, chemical, and physical properties of the ocean, where empirical observations are in short supply.

A recent study in Nature, Ecology and Evolution focused on copepods in the northern half of the North Atlantic Ocean, where the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) time series program has documented surface plankton abundance and taxonomic composition for nearly six decades. Copepods transport carbon passively by producing sinking fecal pellets while feeding near the sea surface, and actively via daily and seasonal migrations to deeper waters where carbon is released through respiration, defecation, and mortality. Using allometry, metabolic theory, and an optimal behavior model, the authors examined patterns of passive and active carbon transport from 1960 to 2014 and sensitivity of carbon export to different model inputs.

Figure caption: Spatial distribution and change, from 1960 to 2014, of modeled copepod-mediated carbon flux: top left – mean passive carbon flux (sinking fecal pellets), bottom left – change in passive carbon flux, top right – mean active carbon flux (respiration plus fecal pellets produced during diel vertical migration), bottom right – change in active carbon flux.

The authors observed that from southern Iceland to the Gulf of Maine, copepod-mediated carbon transport has increased over the last six decades, with the highest rates around 30 mgC m-2 y-1 each decade for passive flux, and 4 mgC m-2 y-1 each decade for active flux. Meanwhile, it has decreased across much of the more temperate central northern North Atlantic with highest rates around 69 mgC m-2 y-1 each decade for passive flux and 8 mgC m-2 y-1 each decade for active flux. This pattern is largely driven by changes in copepod population distributions and community structure, specifically the distributions of large and abundant species (e.g. Calanus spp.). These results suggest that shifts in species distributions driven by a changing global climate are already impacting ecosystem function across the northern North Atlantic Ocean. These shifts are not latitudinally uniform, thus highlighting the complexity of marine ecosystems. This study demonstrates the importance of these sustained plankton measurements and how plankton-mediated carbon fluxes can be mechanistically implemented in next-generation biogeochemical models.

Authors:
Philipp Brun (Technical University of Denmark and Swiss Federal Research Institute)
Karen Stamieszkin (University of Maine, Bigelow Lab and Virginia Institute of Marine Science)
Andre W. Visser (Technical University of Denmark)
Priscilla Licandro (Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, and Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Italy)
Mark R. Payne (Technical University of Denmark)
Thomas Kiørboe (Technical University of Denmark)

 

Also see OCB2019 plenary session: The effect of size on ocean processes (allometry) and implications for export (Thursday, June 27, 2019)

South Pacific particulate organic carbon fate challenges Martin’s Law

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Tuesday, May 14th, 2019 

Joint science highlight with GEOTRACES

Carbon storage in the ocean is sensitive to the depths at which particulate organic carbon (POC) is respired back to CO2 within the twilight zone (100-1000m). For decades, it has been an oceanographic priority to determine the depth scale of this regeneration process. To investigate this, GEOTRACES scientists are deploying new isotopic tools that provide a high-resolution snapshot of POC flux and regeneration across steep biogeochemical gradients in the South Pacific Ocean.

A recent paper in PNAS reported on particulate organic carbon (POC) fluxes throughout the water column (focusing on the upper 1000 m) along the GP16 GEOTRACES section between Peru and Tahiti (Figure 1A).  POC fluxes (Figure 1B) were derived by normalizing concentrations of POC to 230Th following analysis of samples collected by in situ filtration. This work builds on a research theme initiated at the GEOTRACES-OCB synthesis workshop held at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in 2016.

Figure caption: Site map and POC flux characteristics from GEOTRACES GP16 section. Plot A) shows the GP16 station locations as white circles, with nearby sediment trap deployments as black stars, with 2013 MODIS satellite-derived net primary productivity in the background. Plot B) shows POC fluxes from particulate 230Th-normalization from selected stations spanning the zonal extent of the GP16 section. Plot C) shows power law exponent b values for each GP16 station (blue), compared to estimates from bottom-moored sediment traps in the South Pacific (black and red dashed lines), a compilation of sediment traps in the North Pacific (green dashed line), and neutrally buoyant sediment traps in the subtropical North Pacific (yellow shaded band). GP16 regeneration length scales from 230Th-normalization agree most closely with the estimates from neutrally buoyant sediment traps.

The study results show that POC regeneration depth is shallower than anticipated, especially in warm stratified waters of the subtropical gyre. Regeneration depth—expressed in terms of the Martin-curve power-law exponent “b” (Figure 1C)—is shown to be greater than previous estimates (horizontal dashed lines), but similar to values obtained using neutrally buoyant sediment traps at the Hawaii Ocean Time-series Station Aloha. In contrast to the rapid regeneration of POC in warm stratified waters, POC regeneration within the ODZ is below our detection limits. Models have shown that shallower regeneration of POC leads to less efficient carbon storage in the ocean, making the authors speculate that global warming, yielding expanded and more stratified gyres, may induce a reduction of the ocean’s efficacy for carbon storage via the biological pump.

 

Authors:
Frank J. Pavia, Robert F. Anderson, Sebastian M. Vivancos, Martin Q. Fleisher (Columbia University)
Phoebe J. Lam (University of California Santa Cruz)
B.B. Cael (now at University of Hawai’i Manoa, formerly at MIT)
Yanbin Lu, Pu Zhang, R. Lawrence Edwards (University of Minnesota)
Hai Cheng (University of Minnesota and Xi’an Jiaotong University)

Northeast Pacific time-series reveals episodic events as major player in carbon export

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Tuesday, April 16th, 2019 

Temporal fluctuations in the oceanic carbon budget play an important role in the cycling of organic matter from production in surface waters to consumption and sequestration in the deep ocean. A 29-year time-series (1989-2017) of particulate organic carbon (POC) fluxes and seafloor measurements of oxygen consumption in the abyssal northeast Pacific (Sta. M, 4,000 m depth) recently revealed an increasing proportional contribution from episodic events over the past seven years. From 2011 to 2017, 43% of POC flux arrived during high-magnitude (≥ mean + 2 σ) episodic events. Time lags between changes in satellite-estimated export flux (EF), POC flux to the seafloor, and seafloor oxygen consumption varied from 0 to 70 days among six flux events, which could be attributed to variable remineralization rates and/or particle sinking speeds. The Martin equation, a commonly used model to estimate carbon flux, predicted background fluxes well but missed episodic fluxes, subsequently underestimating the measured fluxes by almost 50% (Figure 1). This study reveals the potential importance of episodic POC pulses into the deep sea in the oceanic carbon budget, which has implications for observing infrastructure, model development, and field campaigns focused on quantifying carbon export.

Figure Caption: (A) Station M POC flux measured from sediment traps compared to Martin model estimates, from 1989 to 2017. (B) Model performance for years with >50% sampling coverage: (POC fluxMartin − POC fluxtrap)/POC fluxtrap 100.

 

Authors:
Kenneth Smith (MBARI)
Henry Ruhl (MBARI, NOC)
Christine Huffard (MBARI)
Monique Messié (MBARI, Aix Marseille Université)
Mati Kahru (Scripps)

 

See also https://www.mbari.org/carbon-pulses-climate-models/

Zooplankton vertical migrations represent a significant source of carbon export in the ocean

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, March 15th, 2019 

Huge numbers of tiny marine animals, known as zooplankton, migrate between the surface ocean and the twilight zone (200 – 1,000 m below the surface) everyday; it is the largest migration event anywhere on the planet. How much carbon do these animals transport with them and how much do they leave behind sequestered in the deep ocean? In a recent publication in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Archibald et al. (2019) used a simple model to estimate the magnitude of carbon flux into the twilight zone from zooplankton vertical migrations and observed that it was a significant contributor to carbon export on a global scale. The study also revealed strong regional patterns in migration-mediated carbon flux, with the greatest impact on export occurring at subtropical latitudes (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Percent increase in the modeled carbon export flux out of the surface ocean as a result of zooplankton vertical migrations.

Migrating zooplankton also consume significant amounts of oxygen at depth, generating a local maximum in the oxygen utilization profile at depth within the migration layer. By including the effect of the metabolism of migrating zooplankton, the model is able to produce a more detailed picture of oxygen utilization over the twilight zone. The model in this study effectively simulates the complex phenomenon of zooplankton vertical migrations, providing a simple framework that will allow researchers to investigate how this key component of the global carbon cycle might change under future climatic conditions. For example, if increased stratification leads to a greater representation of small cells in phytoplankton communities, then zooplankton migration-mediated carbon export is expected to make up a proportionally larger fraction of the total carbon export flux.

Authors:
Kevin M. Archibald (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
David A. Siegel (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Scott C. Doney (University of Virginia)

Dust-borne iron in the Southern Ocean was more bioavailable during glacial periods

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019 

The Southern Ocean is iron (Fe)-limited, and increased fluxes of dust-borne Fe to the Southern Ocean during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) have been associated with phytoplankton growth and CO2 drawdown. Dust contains different mixes of Fe-bearing minerals, depending on the source region. Fe(II) silicate minerals from physical weathering are more bioavailable than Fe(III) oxyhydroxide minerals from chemical weathering. The Fe(II) silicates are dominant in dust sources that have been weathered from bedrock by glaciers in Patagonia, but the impact of glacial activity on dust-borne Fe speciation (Fe oxidation state and mineral composition) and bioavailability over the last glacial cycle has not previously been quantified.

Figure 1. The fraction of Fe(II) in dust (Fe(II)/Fetotal, dominated by Fe(II) silicates, shown as blue dots connected with dotted lines on blue axes) in marine sediment cores from (A) the South Atlantic and (B) the South Pacific plotted with the total dust flux (grey lines on grey axes).

A recent study in PNAS reconstructs the speciation of dust-borne Fe over the last glacial cycle in South Atlantic and South Pacific marine sediment cores using Fe K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy. The authors observed that the highly bioavailable Fe(II) silicate content of dust-borne Fe is higher in both regions during cold glacial periods, suggesting that a given flux of Fe is more bioavailable in glacial versus interglacial periods (Figure 1). Therefore, all Fe cannot be considered equal in biogeochemical models working on glacial-interglacial timescales. The bioavailability of a given flux of Fe at the LGM was likely a dominant driver of phytoplankton growth, with more bioavailable Fe driving increased phytoplankton activity and associated atmospheric CO2 drawdown and subsequent cooling. The observed association between glacial periods and increased Fe bioavailability in the Southern Ocean may indicate an important positive feedback mechanism between glacial activity and cold glacial temperatures through Fe speciation and the efficiency of the biological pump.

Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1809755115

Authors:
Elizabeth M. Shoenfelt (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University)
Gisela Winckler (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University)
Frank Lamy (Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research)
Robert F. Anderson (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University)
Benjamin C. Bostick (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University)

 

The past, present, and future of artificial ocean iron fertilization experiments

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019 

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, human activities have greatly increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations, leading to global warming and indicating an urgent need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. The Martin (or iron) hypothesis suggests that ocean iron fertilization (OIF) could be a low-cost effective method for reducing atmospheric CO2 levels by stimulating carbon sequestration via the biological pump in iron-limited, high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll (HNLC) ocean regions. Given increasing global political, social, and economic concerns associated with climate change, it is necessary to examine the validity and usefulness of artificial OIF (aOIF) experimentation as a geoengineering solution.

Figure 1. (a) Global annual distribution of surface chlorophyll concentrations (mg m-3) with locations of 13 aOIF experiments. Maximum and initial values in (b) maximum quantum yield of photosynthesis (Fv/Fm ratios) and (c) chlorophyll-a concentrations (mg m-3) during aOIF experiments. (d) Changes in primary productivity (ΔPP = [PP]post-fertilization (postf) ‒ [PP]pre-fertilization (pref); mg C m-2 d-1). (e) Distributions of chlorophyll-a concentrations (mg m-3) on day 24 after iron addition in the Southern Ocean iron experiment-north (SOFeX-N) from MODIS Terra Level-2 daily image and on day 20 in the SOFeX-south (SOFeX-S) from SeaWiFS Level-2 daily image (white dotted box indicates phytoplankton bloom during aOIF experiments). (f) Changes in nitrate concentrations (ΔNO3– = [NO3–]postf ‒ [NO3–]pref; μM). (g) Changes in partial pressure of CO2 (ΔpCO2 = [pCO2]postf ‒ [pCO2]pref; μatm). The color bar indicates changes in dissolved inorganic carbon (ΔDIC = [DIC]postf ‒ [DIC]pref; μM). The numbers on the X axis indicate the order of aOIF experiments as given in Figure 1a and are grouped according to ocean basins; Equatorial Pacific (EP) (yellow bar), Southern Ocean (SO) (blue bar), subarctic North Pacific (NP) (red bar), and subtropical North Atlantic (NA) (green bar).

A review paper published in Biogeosciences on aOIF experiments provides a thorough overview of 13 scientific artificial OIF experiments conducted in HNLC regions over the last 25 years. These aOIF experiments have demonstrated that iron addition stimulates substantial increases in phytoplankton biomass and primary production, resulting in drawdown of macro-nutrients and dissolved inorganic carbon (Figure 1). Many of the aOIF experiments have also precipitated community shifts from smaller (pico- and nano-) to larger (micro) phytoplankton. However, the impact on the net transfer of CO2 from the atmosphere to below the winter mixed layer via the biological pump is not yet fully understood or quantified and appears to vary with environmental conditions, export flux measurement techniques, and other unknown factors. These results, including possible side effects, have been debated among those who support and oppose aOIF experimentation, and many questions remain about the effectiveness of scientific aOIF, possible side effects, and international aOIF law frameworks. Therefore, it is important to continue undertaking small-scale, scientifically controlled studies to better understand natural processes in the HNLC regions, assess the associated risks, and lay the groundwork for evaluating the potential effectiveness and impacts of large-scale aOIF as a geoengineering solution to anthropogenic climate change. Additionally, this paper suggests considerations for the design of future aOIF experiments to maximize the effectiveness of the technique and begin to answer open questions under international aOIF regulations.

 

Authors:
Joo-Eun Yoon (Incheon National University)
Il-Nam Kim (Incheon National University)
Alison M. Macdonald (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

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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.