“Carbon export,” refers to the amount of carbon dioxide that is removed from the atmosphere by organisms in the surface ocean and subsequently transported into the deep sea, either through sinking particulate organic carbon (POC; more efficient process) or downward mixing of suspended POC and dissolved organic carbon (DOC and suspended POC; less efficient process), …
Continue reading Using multiple geochemical budgets to partition NCP into POC and DOC export
Carbon export out of the surface ocean, estimated as Net Community Production (NCP), regulates the transfer of carbon dioxide across the sea surface and thus atmospheric CO2 concentration. Accurate NCP estimates in productive coastal regions often require constraints on vertical transport and precise measurements of the O2/Ar ratio to remove the influence of bubbles from …
Continue reading Using gliders to fill in time/space gaps in carbon export estimates
Net community production (NCP) represents the amount of biologically-produced organic carbon that is available to be exported out of the surface ocean and is often estimated using in-situ measurements of the O2/Ar ratio in the surface mixed layer. However, physical processes that introduce low-oxygen waters into the surface ocean can significantly bias NCP estimates. Furthermore, without an additional measure of …
Continue reading Transport bias in ΔO2/Ar-based NCP in dynamic coastal regions
The balance of marine autotrophy and heterotrophy regulates the ocean's ability to serve as a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide through carbon export via the biological pump. The efficiency of this process varies, often in conjunction with variability in surface ocean dynamics, but it is still unclear what drives these changes. In a recent paper in …
Continue reading How do physical dynamics alter carbon export efficiency?
Accurate estimates of the magnitude of organic carbon export from satellite measurements of ocean color would lead to a better understanding of the global sink for atmospheric CO2. However, we have yet to fully understand how the distribution of phytoplankton in the surface ocean translates into organic carbon export. There is evidence that certain groups of phytoplankton contribute disproportionately …
