Archive for net community production

An expanding understanding of Southern Ocean productivity and export

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Monday, February 13th, 2023 

Biology in the Southern Ocean is known to help regulate Earth’s climate by capturing and eventually sequestering carbon from its surface. Unfortunately, accurate estimates of the magnitude of the Southern Ocean (SO) biological carbon sink are limited and subject to ongoing debate. However, a recently published study used the expanding Southern Ocean BGC-Argo fleet to provide new estimates of SO Annual Net Community Production (ANCP) and export production.

Over long enough time and space scales (>1000 km and seasons), ANCP is equal to the amount of carbon fixed during photosynthesis that is not remineralized in the surface layer. What remains is available to be exported to depth. As this organic matter sinks out of the surface ocean, most of it is eventually remineralized by bacteria, leaving behind a signature of depleted oxygen. With enough floats, basin-scale ANCP can be estimated from the seasonal oxygen drawdown measured across their profiles. While similar studies have been carried out on single floats, here, the authors construct a composite of all available profiles and include a greater depth range than previously considered.

Figure 1. All available BGC-ARGO float profiles (25,512) were used to create an A) ensemble seasonal cycle in surface chlorophyll and sub-surface oxygen. B) Annual Net Community Production (ANCP) was then estimated by computing the depth-integrated oxygen depletion during the productive period. C) ANCP was estimated across 12 major regions, separated by the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic basins and Subantarctic (SAZ), Polar (PFZ), Antarctic (AZ), and Southern (S) frontal zones. Each region used 100s-1000s of individual float profiles (color-coded scatter points).

Results from this novel approach estimate SO ANCP (and ~export) at 3.89 GT C year-1, with basin-scale regional estimates as much as a factor 2.8 larger than previous studies. Moreover, nearly 30% of remineralization was measured at depths not typically considered, with 14% below 500 m and another 15% immediately below the euphotic depth but above 100 m. These values suggest a more critical role for the Southern Ocean in regulating oceanic carbon storage, atmospheric CO2 exchange, and climate than previously thought.

 

Authors:
Jiaoyang Su (University of Tasmania, Australia)
Christina Schallenberg (University of Tasmania, and Australian Antarctic Program Partnership)
Tyler Rohr (Australian Antarctic Program Partnership)
Peter G. Strutton (University of Tasmania, Australia)
Helen E. Phillips (University of Tasmania, and Australian Antarctic Program Partnership)

Towards using historical oxygen observations to reconstruct the air-sea flux of biological oxygen

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Tuesday, December 13th, 2022 

Dissolved oxygen (O2) is a central observation in oceanography with a long history of relatively high precision measurements and increasing coverage over the 21st century. O2 is a powerful tracer of physical, chemical and biological processes (e.g., photosynthesis and respiration, wave-induced bubbles, mixing, and air-sea diffusion). A commonly used approach to partition the processes controlling the O2 signal relies on concurrent measurements of argon (an inert gas), which has solubility properties similar to O2. However, only a limited fraction of O2 measurements have paired argon measurements.

Figure 1. (a) The newly developed empirical model to parameterize the physical oxygen saturation anomaly (ΔO2[phy]) in order to separate the biological contribution from total oxygen, and (b-c) regional, inter-annual, and decadal variability of air-sea gas flux of biological oxygen (F[O2]bio as) reconstructed from the historical dissolved oxygen record.

A recent study published in the Journal of Global Biogeochemical Cycles presents semi-analytical algorithms to separate the biological and physical O2 oxygen signals from O2 observations. Among the approaches, a machine-learning algorithm using ship-based measurements and historical records of physical parameters from reanalysis products as predictors shows encouraging performance. The researchers leveraged this new algorithm to reconstruct regional, inter-annual, and decadal variability of the air-sea flux of biological oxygen (from historical O2 records.

The long-term objective of this proof-of-concept effort is to estimate from historical oxygen records and a rapidly growing number of O2 measurements on autonomous platforms. In regions where vertical and horizontal mixing is weak, the projected  approximates net community production, providing an independent constraint on the strength of the biological carbon pump.

 

Authors:
Yibin Huang (Duke University)
Rachel Eveleth (Oberlin College)
David (Roo) Nicholson (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Nicolas Cassar (Duke University)

Using BGC-Argo to obtain depth-resolved net primary production

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, July 23rd, 2021 

Net primary production (NPP)—the organic carbon produced by the phytoplankton minus the organic carbon respired by phytoplankton themselves—serves as a major energy source of the marine ecosystem. Traditional methods for measuring NPP rely on ship-based discrete sampling and bottle incubations (e.g., 14C incubation), which introduce potential artifacts and limit the spatial and temporal data coverage of the global ocean. The global distribution of NPP has been estimated using satellite observations, but the satellite remote sensing approach cannot provide direct information at depth.

Figure 1. Panel A. Trajectories of 5 BGC-Argo and 1 SOS-Argo with the initial float deployment locations denoted by filled symbols. The dash-line at 47° N divided the research area into the northern (temperate) and southern (subtropical) regions. Stars indicate ship stations where 14C NPP values were measured during NAAMES cruises and compared with NPP from nearby Argo floats. Panels B and C. Monthly climatologies of net primary production (NPP, mmol m-3 d-1) profiles in the northern and southern regions of the research area, derived from BGC-Argo measurements using the PPM model. The shadings indicate one standard deviation. The red dotted line indicates mixed layer depth (MLD, m), and the yellow dashed line shows euphotic depth (Z1%, m).

To fill this niche, a recent study in Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, applied bio-optical measurements from Argo profiling floats to study the year-round depth-resolved NPP of the western North Atlantic Ocean (39° N to 54° N). The authors calculated NPP with two bio-optical models (Carbon-based Productivity Model, CbPM; and Photoacclimation Productivity Model, PPM). A comparison with NPP profiles from 14C incubation measurements showed advantages and limitations of both models. CbPM reproduced the magnitude of NPP in most cases, but had artifacts in the summer (a large NPP peak in the subsurface) due to the subsurface chlorophyll maximum caused by photoacclimation. PPM avoided the artifacts in the summer from photoacclimation, but the magnitude of PPM-derived NPP was smaller than the 14C result. Latitudinally varying NPP were observed, including higher winter NPP/lower summer NPP in the south, timing differences in NPP seasonal phenology, and different NPP depth distribution patterns in the summer months. With a 6-month record of concurrent oxygen and bio-optical measurements from two Argo floats, the authors also demonstrated the ability of Argo profiling floats to obtain estimates of the net community production (NCP) to NPP ratio (f-ratio), ranging from 0.3 in July to -1.0 in December 2016.

This work highlights the utility of float bio-optical profiles in comparison to traditional measurements and indicates that environmental conditions (e.g. light availability, nutrient supply) are major factors controlling the seasonality and spatial (horizontal and vertical) distributions of NPP in the western North Atlantic Ocean.

 

Authors:
Bo Yang (University of Virginia, UM CIMAS/NOAA AOML)
James Fox (Oregon State University)
Michael J. Behrenfeld (Oregon State University)
Emmanuel S. Boss (University of Maine)
Nils Haëntjens (University of Maine)
Kimberly H. Halsey (Oregon State University)
Steven R. Emerson (University of Washington)
Scott C. Doney (University of Virginia)

An autonomous approach to monitoring coral reef health

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Thursday, July 20th, 2017 

Coral reefs are diverse, productive ecosystems that are highly vulnerable to changing ocean conditions such as acidification and warming. Coral reef metabolism—in particular the fundamental ecosystem properties of net community production (NCP; the balance of photosynthesis and respiration) and net community calcification (NCC; the balance of calcification and dissolution)—has been proposed as a proxy for reef health. NCC is of particular interest, since ocean acidification is expected to have detrimental effects on reef calcification.

Traditionally, these metabolic rates are quantified through laborious methods that involve discrete sampling, which, due to a limited number of observations, often fails to characterize natural variability on time scales of minutes to days. In a recent paper in JGR, Takeshita et al. (2016) presented the Benthic Ecosystem and Acidification Measurement System (BEAMS), a fully autonomous system that simultaneously measures NCP and NCC at 15-minute intervals over a period of weeks. BEAMS utilizes the gradient flux method to quantify benthic metabolic rates by measuring chemical (pH and O2) and velocity gradients in the turbulent benthic boundary layer.

Two BEAMS were simultaneously deployed on Palmyra Atoll located approximately one km apart over vastly different benthic communities. One site was a healthy reef with approximately 70% coral cover, and the other was a degraded reef site with only 5% coral cover that was dominated by a non-calcifying invasive corallimorph Rhodactis howesii. Over the course of two weeks, BEAMS collected over 1,000 measurements of NCP and NCC from each site, yielding significantly different ratios of NCP to NCC between the two sites. These initial results suggest that BEAMS is capable of detecting different metabolic states, as well as patterns consistent with degrading reef health.

BEAMS is an exciting new autonomous tool to monitor reef health and study drivers of reef metabolism on timescales ranging from minutes to months (and potentially years). Additionally, autonomous measurement tools increase the potential for widespread and comparable observations across reefs and reef systems. Such knowledge will greatly improve our ability to predict the fate of coral reefs in a changing ocean.

 

Authors: 
Yui Takeshita (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)

What controls the distribution of dissolved organic carbon in the surface ocean?

Posted by mmaheigan 
· Friday, November 11th, 2016 

Around 662 billion tons of organic carbon are dissolved in the ocean, making the pool one of Earth’s major, exchangeable carbon reservoirs. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) has many ecological functions. It can form complexes with metals (1); absorb UV and visible light, acting as a “sunscreen” for marine microorganisms and controlling primary production in the upper water column (2); it has antioxidant activity, reacting with free radicals in the media (3); but most importantly, it serves as substrate for the microbial loop and as a vehicle for carbon sequestration in the ocean. Therefore, DOC plays an important role in climate on geological time scales.

Because the amount of atmospheric CO2 is of the same magnitude as the DOC pool, and is closely linked to it through exchange, variations in one of these reservoirs can affect the other, impacting the carbon cycle with consequences for climate. Significant net DOC remineralization would lead to an increase of atmospheric CO2, enhancing greenhouse warming at the surface of the Earth. Net oxidation of only 1% of the seawater DOC pool within 1 year would be sufficient to generate a CO2 flux of 7 PgC/yr, comparable to that produced annually by fossil fuel combustion (4). It has also been proposed that a large-scale oxidation of DOC may have prevented a dramatic global glaciation (‘snowball earth’) in the Neoproterozoic period (5).

Despite its importance, knowledge about DOC dynamics is relatively limited; in fact, it was considered highly inert until about three decades ago when a new analytical technique for measuring it via high-temperature catalytic oxidation stimulated new interest (6). The technique eventually provided more accurate DOC values, showing that it was more involved in the carbon cycle than previously thought and that its concentrations vary with depth, time, and location. Considering DOC distributions observed in the surface Atlantic Ocean (Fig. 1), we see values in the subtropical gyres of 65-70 µmol Kg-1, the highest concentrations in the tropics (> 70 µmol Kg-1), the lowest in the Southern Ocean (< 50 µmol Kg-1), and moderate concentrations in the northern North Atlantic (55-60 µmol Kg-1); this pattern is consistent in other ocean basins. So what controls this distribution and can we predict it? Even with improved analytical techniques, DOC is not a variable that can be measured easily at sea, and the sampling must be done carefully since it is easy to contaminate. Therefore, DOC data are typically fewer than those of other more readily determined variables such as nutrients and oxygen. If we could predict DOC from variables for which much greater global ocean coverage exists, we could fill the very large spatial and temporal gaps in the DOC fields.

DOC is produced in the upper water column by phytoplankton (primary producers). Actually, half of the inorganic carbon that is fixed by phytoplankton is transformed to DOC. Heterotrophic microbes consume most of that DOC, but ~ 4% of global annual net primary production (~ 2 Pg C y-1) (7) accumulates as DOC, much of which is exported to the mesopelagic via vertical mixing and convergence, thus contributing to the biological carbon pump.

New primary production, the foundation of a system’s net community production (NCP), depends on new nutrients reaching the euphotic zone, which happens primarily via upwelling in divergence zones and winter vertical mixing. NCP is the balance of the carbon generated by primary producers minus that lost through heterotrophic respiration (prokaryotes and animals). It can be estimated either by a loss of reactants (CO2 or nutrients) or a gain in products (suspended POC, DOC, and export production) (8).

In our work, we needed to establish the fraction of NCP that was present in dissolved form (i.e., the net DOC production ratio, or NDPr). For that, we simply estimated NCP from the nitrate (NO3–) that is consumed in the euphotic zone (DNO3–):

ΔNO3– = new NO3– (introduced from deeper layers) – remaining NO3– (at surface) (Eq. 1)

In the same way, we also calculated net accumulated DOC, or ΔDOC:

ΔDOC = DOC in euphotic zone – DOC introduced from deeper layers (Eq. 2)

The ratio between ΔDOC and ΔNO3– gave us the NDPr:

NDPr = ΔDOC/ΔNO3– (Eq. 3)

NDPr was calculated throughout the Atlantic Ocean using observations of DOC and NO3– from >15 international oceanographic cruises over the last decade, including those occupied by the US Repeat Hydrography program (Fig. 1). Values of NDPr mostly varied between 0.1 and 0.4 (Fig. 2), with the exception of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre (NASG), where NDPr values reach >0.8 at times. After sensitivity testing, we applied a NDPr value of 0.17 to the entire basin, which yielded the smallest error between calculated and observed DOC concentrations. Applying this NDPr value to ΔNO3– (i.e. NCP) obtained from cruise data, we estimate ΔDOC (Eq. 4), in which 6.6 is the molar conversion from N to C units:

ΔDOC= ΔNO3– * 6.6 * 0.17 = NCP * 0.17 (Eq. 4)

To obtain the calculated DOC concentration (DOCcalculated), we added the DOC concentration of underlying source waters (DOCsource) to ΔDOC (Eq. 5):

DOCcalculated = DOCsource + ΔDOC (Eq. 5)

When comparing calculated vs. observed DOC (Fig. 3), we found significant agreement (R2 = 0.64; p < 0.001; n=268) throughout the Atlantic, except in the western North Atlantic, where observed DOC > estimated DOC, especially in the southern sector. After this validation of our approach using nutrients and DOC observations, we applied the method to the more extensive NO3– distributions available in the World Atlas Ocean (WOA) climatology to develop a DOCcalculated map for the entire Atlantic (Fig. 4a). The calculated values agree well with the observations, with a total error of 8.94%.

How much DOC is annually produced in the surface Atlantic Ocean? Total organic carbon export (considered equivalent to NCP) in the Atlantic has been estimated to be 4.15-4.3 Pg C y-1 (9, 10). Applying the 0.17 NDPr (equation 3) indicates that 0.70-0.75 Pg C y-1 accumulates in the Atlantic surface as DOC; as such, the Atlantic accounts for ~36% of the global net DOC production ~2 Pg C y-1.

In permanently stratified areas like the southern sectors of the NASG, our approach is invalid since there is little nutrient input from underlying depths. Also, the static view of our approach does not take into account advection that will modify the DOC distributions, nor does it account for eventual removal of accumulated and advected DOC by microbes. To account for these influences on distributions, we applied the ΔNO3– measurements to a steady-state ocean circulation model including terrestrial DOC inputs and DOC remineralization (Fig. 4b). In the model, zonal advection is evident through enrichment of DOC in the Caribbean Sea. Also, inputs of terrestrial DOC are observed near the outflow of the Amazon River. However, the model only slightly improved the match between observations and modeled DOC, with a total error of 8.71% vs. the 8.94% obtained before the model application.

The correspondence between observations and modeled values was good, considering that we are comparing observations of DOC from cruises during specific seasons with estimates based on more idealized nutrient climatology. The main mismatch is found in the western NASG, where observations can reach 13 µmol Kg-1 higher than calculated values. Local production and/or allochthonous inputs of either new nutrients or DOC must be considered. Local production of DOC could result from addition of nitrogen from sources beyond vertical mixing such as diazotrophic N2 fixation, atmospheric deposition, and river runoff. Alternatively, DOC can be concentrated by evaporation, as is sea salt. However, none of these explain the high DOC values observed in the NASG. DOC flux estimated from dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) released by N2 fixation (11) is too low to explain the extra DOC. Regarding the atmospheric deposition, aerosol optical depth data suggest higher deposition in the eastern than in the western North Atlantic (11), and no excess of DOC is observed there. According to salinity distributions from the World Ocean Atlas, advection of DOC from the closest major rivers (Amazon and Orinoco) does not extend far enough northward to explain the NASG anomaly. Salinity normalization of DOC does not erase the feature, indicating that evaporation is not the cause. Those elevated values of carbon are found during cruises from 2003 in the same area (12), so it appears to be a persistent feature. The anomaly also coincides with a DON maximum and a light stable isotope (δ15N) composition in the particulate organic carbon based on measurements recorded in 2004 (13). An explanation for these anomalies has not been confirmed.

 

Conclusions

New nutrients are the fundamental driver of net DOC accumulation in the surface Atlantic Ocean. As such, climate-driven changes in ocean dynamics, which will affect the supply of nutrients to the euphotic zone, will affect the DOC inventory. The effects of climate change on the nutrient supply to the upper water column are not well known, but they will depend on the opposing influences of thermal stratification and upwelling intensification. Some authors predict an intensification and spatial homogenization of coastal upwelling systems (14, 15). Such would increase the nutrient input to the euphotic zone and the net DOC production. In contrast, others have reported that ocean warming should intensify thermal stratification, reducing nutrient flux by vertical mixing in regions not affected by coastal upwelling systems (16, 17). Depending on which of these phenomena dominate, the nutrient supply will change, in turn changing the DOC budget and its distribution. Furthermore, the percentage of NCP accumulating as DOC (i.e. NDPr), found here to be ~17%, could change in response to a shift in the balance of autotrophs and heterotrophs. This multitude of influencing factors will undoubtedly impact the future course of the oceanic DOC budget.

 

Authors

Cristina Romera-Castillo (Univ. of Vienna) and Dennis A. Hansell (RSMAS, Univ. Miami)

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the other co-author, Robert T. Letscher, from the more extended version of this published work. Also to Dr. X.A. Álvarez-Salgado for the use of DOC data he collected during cruises supported by the Spanish government. Data collection on US CLIVAR sections and involvement by C.R.-C. and D.A.H. were supported by US National Science Foundation OCE1436748.

References

  1. Midorikawa, T., E. Tanoue, 1998. Mar. Chem. 62, 219-239.
  2. Arrigo, K. R., C. W., Brown, 1996. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 140, 207-216.
  3. Romera-Castillo, C., R. Jaffé, 2015. Mar. Chem. 177, 668–676.
  4. Hedges, J. I. 2002. In: Hansell, D., Carlson, C. (Eds.), 2002. Biogeochemistry of marine dissolved organic matter. Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 1-33.
  5. Peltier, W. R. et al., 2007. Nature 450, 813-819.
  6. Hansell, D. A., C. A. Carlson, 2015. Eos, 96, doi:10.1029/2015EO033011.
  7. Hansell, D. A., et al., 2009. Oceanography 22, 202-211.
  8. Hansell, D. A., C. A. Carlson, 1998. Global Biogeochem. Cycles 12, 443-453.
  9. Laws, E. A., et al., 2000. Global Biogeochem. Cycles 14, 1231-1246.
  10. Dunne, J. P., et al., 2007. Global Biogeochem. Cycles 21, GB4006.
  11. Benavides, M., et al., 2013. J. Geophys. Res.: Oceans 118, 3406-3415.
  12. Carlson, C. A. et al., 2010. Deep-Sea Res. Pt II 57, 1433-1445.
  13. Landolfi, A. et al., 2016. Deep-Sea Res. Part I 111, 50-60.
  14. Sydeman, W. J. et al., 2014. Science 345, 77-80.
  15. Wang, D. et al., 2015. Nature 518, 390-394.
  16. Cermeño, P. et al., 2008. PNAS 105, 20344-20349.
  17. Bopp L, et al., 2013. Biogeosciences 10, 6225-6245.
  18. Schlitzer, R., 2015. Ocean Data View. Available at https://odv.awi.de
  19. Romera-Castillo, C. et al., 2016. PNAS 113, 10497–10502.

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