The coastal upwelling region of the California Current System (CalCS) is a well‐known site of high productivity and lateral export of nutrients and organic matter, yet neither the magnitude nor the ...governing processes of this offshore transport are well quantified. Here we address this gap using a high‐resolution (5 km) coupled physical‐biogeochemical numerical simulation (ROMS). The results reveal (i) that the offshore transport is a very substantial component of any material budget in this region, (ii) that it reaches more than 800 km into the offshore domain, and (iii) that this transport is largely controlled by mesoscale processes, involving filaments and westward propagating eddies. The process starts in the nearshore areas, where nutrient and organic matter‐rich upwelled waters pushed offshore by Ekman transport are subducted at the sharp lateral density gradients of upwelling fronts and filaments located at ∼25–100 km from the coast. The filaments are very effective in transporting the subducted material further offshore until they form eddies at their tips at about 100–200 km from the shore. The cyclonic eddies tend to trap the cold, nutrient, and organic matter‐rich waters of the filaments, whereas the anticyclones formed nearby encapsulate the low nutrient and low organic matter waters around the filament. After their detachment, both types of eddies propagate further in offshore direction, with a speed similar to that of the first baroclinic mode Rossby waves, providing the key mechanism for long‐range transport of nitrate and organic matter from the coast deep into the offshore environment.
Key Points:
Mesoscale eddies play dominant roles in offshore transport of organic carbon
Nitrate upwelled is largely subducted at upwelling front before consumed
Dominant roles of eddies and filaments are confirmed by many different methods
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The interplay between ocean circulation and coral metabolism creates highly variable biogeochemical conditions in space and time across tropical coral reefs. Yet, relatively little is known ...quantitatively about the spatiotemporal structure of these variations. To address this gap, we use the Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Wave and Sediment Transport (COAWST) model, to which we added the Biogeochemical Elemental Cycling (BEC) model computing the biogeochemical processes in the water column, and a coral polyp physiology module that interactively simulates coral photosynthesis, respiration and calcification. The coupled model, configured for the north-shore of Moorea Island, successfully simulates the observed (i) circulation across the wave regimes, (ii) magnitude of the metabolic rates, and (iii) large gradients in biogeochemical conditions across the reef. Owing to the interaction between coral net community production (NCP) and coral calcification, the model simulates distinct day versus night gradients, especially for pH and the saturation state of seawater with respect to aragonite (Ω
α
). The strength of the gradients depends non-linearly on the wave regime and the resulting residence time of water over the reef with the low wave regime creating conditions that are considered as “extremely marginal” for corals. With the average water parcel passing more than twice over the reef, recirculation contributes further to the accumulation of these metabolic signals. We find diverging temporal and spatial relationships between total alkalinity (TA) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) (≈ 0.16 for the temporal vs. ≈ 1.8 for the spatial relationship), indicating the importance of scale of analysis for this metric. Distinct biogeochemical niches emerge from the simulated variability, i.e., regions where the mean and variance of the conditions are considerably different from each other. Such biogeochemical niches might cause large differences in the exposure of individual corals to the stresses associated with e.g., ocean acidification. At the same time, corals living in the different biogeochemical niches might have adapted to the differing conditions, making the reef, perhaps, more resilient to change. Thus, a better understanding of the mosaic of conditions in a coral reef might be useful to assess the health of a coral reef and to develop improved management strategies.
The P· approach analyses the relative abundance of nitrate (the major form of fixed nitrogen) and phosphate in sea water, and estimates the transport and mixing of these nutrients using an ...ocean-circulation model. The authors pick up many of the threads initially laid out by Redfield and also used in the P· approach. ...they use a diagnostic model to work out the sources and sinks of fixed nitrogen and phosphorus implied by the transport and mixing of nitrate and phosphate in sea water, and compare this with the N: The authors' diagnostic model infers that most marine nitrogen fixation occurs in the ocean's subtropical gyres - vast circulation systems that span entire ocean basins at mid-latitudes, and which have low levels of nutrients (Fig. 1). ...the simulations from the authors' biogeochemistry-ecology model consider essentially just one type of nitrogen fixer, whereas a diverse range of organisms are capable of nitrogen fixation14.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Repeat observations along the meridional Atlantic section A16 from Iceland to 56°S show substantial changes in the total dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentrations in the ocean between ...occupations from 1989 through 2005. The changes correspond to the expected increase in DIC driven by the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere, but the ΔDIC is more varied and larger, in some locations, than can be explained solely by this process. Concomitant large changes in oxygen (O2) suggest that processes acting on the natural carbon cycle also contribute to ΔDIC. Precise partial pressure of CO2 measurements suggest small but systematic increases in the bottom waters. To isolate the anthropogenic CO2 component (ΔCanthro) from ΔDIC, an extended multilinear regression approach is applied along isopycnal surfaces. This yields an average depth‐integrated ΔCanthro of 0.53 ± 0.05 mol m−2 yr−1 with maximum values in the temperate zones of both hemispheres and a minimum in the tropical Atlantic. A higher decadal increase in the anthropogenic CO2 inventory is found for the South Atlantic compared to the North Atlantic. This anthropogenic CO2 accumulation pattern is opposite to that seen for the entire Anthropocene up to the 1990s. This change could perhaps be a consequence of the reduced downward transport of anthropogenic CO2 in the North Atlantic due to recent climate variability. Extrapolating the results for this section to the entire Atlantic basin (63°N to 56°S) yields an uptake of 5 ± 1 Pg C decade−1, which corresponds to about 25% of the annual global ocean uptake of anthropogenic CO2 during this period.
The ΔC* method of Gruber et al. (1996) is widely used to estimate the distribution of anthropogenic carbon in the ocean; however, as yet, no thorough assessment of its accuracy has been made. Here we ...provide a critical re‐assessment of the method and determine its accuracy by applying it to synthetic data from a global ocean biogeochemistry model, for which we know the “true” anthropogenic CO2 distribution. Our results indicate that the ΔC* method tends to overestimate anthropogenic carbon in relatively young waters but underestimate it in older waters. Main sources of these biases are (1) the time evolution of the air‐sea CO2 disequilibrium, which is not properly accounted for in the ΔC* method, (2) a pCFC ventilation age bias that arises from mixing, and (3) errors in identifying the different end‐member water types. We largely support the findings of Hall et al. (2004), who have also identified the first two bias sources. An extrapolation of the errors that we quantified on a number of representative isopycnals to the global ocean suggests a positive bias of about 7% in the ΔC*‐derived global anthropogenic CO2 inventory. The magnitude of this bias is within the previously estimated 20% uncertainty of the method, but regional biases can be larger. Finally, we propose two improvements to the ΔC* method in order to account for the evolution of air‐sea CO2 disequilibrium and the ventilation age mixing bias.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Long‐term trends and average seasonal variability in the upper ocean carbon cycle are investigated at Station ALOHA, the site of the U.S. JGOFS Hawaii Ocean Time series program (HOT), on the basis of ...a 14‐year time series (1988–2002) of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), alkalinity, and 13C/12C ratio of DIC data. Salinity‐normalized DIC (sDIC) and computed oceanic pCO2 show distinct upward trends of 1.2 ± 0.1 μmol kg−1 yr−1 and 2.5 ± 0.1 μatm yr−1, respectively, while the 13C/12C isotopic ratio of DIC (expressed as δ13Coc) decreases at a mean rate of −0.027 ± 0.001‰ yr−1. More than half of the rates of change in sDIC and oceanic pCO2, and most of the change in 13C/12C, are attributed to the uptake of isotopically light anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere. The residual trends appear to be caused mainly by a regional change in the net freshwater budget, perhaps associated with a regime change of the North Pacific climate system near 1997. Computed oceanic pCO2 is below atmospheric pCO2 for nearly the entire year, leading to an annual mean surface ocean pCO2 undersaturation of about 18 μatm, and to an annual uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere, which we compute to be 1.0 ± 0.1 mol m−2 yr−1. We estimate that about 30% of this flux relates to the uptake of anthropogenic CO2, and the remainder to biologically mediated export of organic carbon. Using a modified version of the diagnostic model of Gruber et al. 1998, constrained by δ13Coc, we infer net community production of organic carbon (NCP) to be the dominant process generating the observed seasonal variability in sDIC. The annual integral of NCP, 2.3 ± 0.8 mol m−2 yr−1, is comparable to previous estimates of biological production in the subtropical North Pacific. Annually integrated fluxes of air‐sea gas exchange and NCP at Station ALOHA are each about two thirds of those computed for the upper ocean near Bermuda using similar methods of estimation Gruber et al., 1998, 2002. However, the seasonal amplitudes of sDIC and δ13Coc near Hawaii are only half as large as near Bermuda, because air‐sea gas exchange and NCP tend to oppose each other near Hawaii, but reinforce each other near Bermuda.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The ocean is a major carbon sink and takes up 25%–30% of the anthropogenically emitted CO2. A state‐of‐the‐art method to quantify this sink are global ocean biogeochemistry models (GOBMs), but their ...simulated CO2 uptake differs between models and is systematically lower than estimates based on statistical methods using surface ocean pCO2 and interior ocean measurements. Here, we provide an in‐depth evaluation of ocean carbon sink estimates from 1980 to 2018 from a GOBM ensemble. As sources of inter‐model differences and ensemble‐mean biases our study identifies (a) the model setup, such as the length of the spin‐up, the starting date of the simulation, and carbon fluxes from rivers and into sediments, (b) the simulated ocean circulation, such as Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and Southern Ocean mode and intermediate water formation, and (c) the simulated oceanic buffer capacity. Our analysis suggests that a late starting date and biases in the ocean circulation cause a too low anthropogenic CO2 uptake across the GOBM ensemble. Surface ocean biogeochemistry biases might also cause simulated anthropogenic fluxes to be too low, but the current setup prevents a robust assessment. For simulations of the ocean carbon sink, we recommend in the short‐term to (a) start simulations at a common date before the industrialization and the associated atmospheric CO2 increase, (b) conduct a sufficiently long spin‐up such that the GOBMs reach steady‐state, and (c) provide key metrics for circulation, biogeochemistry, and the land‐ocean interface. In the long‐term, we recommend improving the representation of these metrics in the GOBMs.
Plain Language Summary
In this study, we evaluate the performance of state‐of‐art global ocean biogeochemistry models (GOBMs) in simulating CO2 fluxes across the air‐sea interface from 1980 to 2018 for the Global Carbon Budget. Across these GOBMs, the simulated CO2 uptake is systematically lower than that of observation‐based estimates and the estimates differ also substantially between GOBMs. As reasons for the too low carbon sink of the GOBMs, we find that the simulations of several GOBMs were initialized after the start of the industrial revolution and that the majority of the considered GOBMs underestimate the large‐scale ocean circulation in the Atlantic. The different initialization times of the simulations as well as different strengths of the simulated ocean circulation across the global ocean also partly explain the inter‐model differences for the ocean carbon sink. Our analysis of the influence of GOBM dynamics on their simulated carbon sink was impeded by the fact that not all GOBMs had the same initial stability and that the riverine component of the ocean carbon sink is highly uncertain in both observations and GOBMs. Based on our evaluation, we give recommendations for follow up studies.
Key Points
The simulated CO2‐uptake by global ocean biogeochemistry models (GOBMs) in the second phase of the REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes project is systematically lower than observation‐based estimates
This underestimation can, to first order, be explained by the simulation setup as well as biases in surface chemistry and ocean circulation
Concrete steps forward are proposed to improve simulations of the ocean carbon sink by GOBMs
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DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The feedbacks between climate, atmospheric CO2 concentration and the terrestrial carbon cycle are a major source of uncertainty in future climate projections with Earth systems models. Here, we use ...observation-based estimates of the interannual variations in evapotranspiration (ET), net biome productivity (NBP), as well as the present-day sensitivity of NBP to climate variations, to constrain globally the terrestrial carbon cycle feedbacks as simulated by models that participated in the fifth phase of the coupled model intercomparison project (CMIP5). The constraints result in a ca. 40% lower response of NBP to climate change and a ca. 30% reduction in the strength of the CO2 fertilization effect relative to the unconstrained multi-model mean. While the unconstrained CMIP5 models suggest an increase in the cumulative terrestrial carbon storage (477 PgC) in response to an idealized scenario of 1%/year atmospheric CO2 increase, the constraints imply a ca. 19% smaller change. Overall, the applied emerging constraint approach offers a possibility to reduce uncertainties in the projections of the terrestrial carbon cycle, which is a key determinant of the future trajectory of atmospheric CO2 concentration and resulting climate change.
The anthropogenic CO2 in the Atlantic Ocean is separated from the large natural variability of dissolved inorganic carbon using the method developed by Gruber et al. 1996. Surface concentrations of ...anthropogenic CO2 are found to be highest in the tropical to subtropical regions and to decrease toward the high latitudes. They are very close to what is expected from thermodynamic considerations assuming that the surface ocean followed the atmospheric CO2 perturbation. Highest specific inventories (inventory per square meter) of anthropogenic CO2 occur in the subtropical convergence zones. Large differences exist between the North and South Atlantic high latitudes: In the North Atlantic, anthropogenic CO2 has already invaded deeply into the interior; north of 50°N it has even reached the bottom. By contrast, waters south of 50°S contain relatively little anthropogenic CO2, and hence specific inventories are very low. An anthropogenic CO2 inventory of about 22 ± 5 Gt C is estimated for the Atlantic north of the equator for 1982, and 18 ± 4 Gt C is estimated for the Atlantic south of the equator for 1989. The Princeton ocean biogeochemistry model predicts anthropogenic CO2 inventories of 20.0 Gt C (North Atlantic, 1982) and 17.7 Gt C (South Atlantic, 1989) for the same regions in good agreement with the observed inventories. Important differences exist on a more regional scale, associated with known deficiencies of the model.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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