Southern Ocean phytoplankton dynamics and carbon export: Insights from a seasonal cycle approach
Quantifying the strength and efficiency of the Southern Ocean biological carbon pump (BCP) and its response to predicted changes in the Earth's climate is fundamental to our ability to predict long-term changes in the global carbon cycle and, by extension, the impact of continued anthropogenic...
| Published in: | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2023
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10204/13158 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2022.0068 |
| Summary: | Quantifying the strength and efficiency of the Southern Ocean biological carbon pump (BCP) and its response to predicted changes in the Earth's climate is fundamental to our ability to predict long-term changes in the global carbon cycle and, by extension, the impact of continued anthropogenic perturbation of atmospheric CO2. There is little agreement, however, in climate model projections of the sensitivity of the Southern Ocean BCP to climate change, with a lack of consensus in even the direction of predicted change, highlighting a gap in our understanding of a major planetary carbon flux. In this review, we summarize relevant research that highlights the important role of fine-scale dynamics (both temporal and spatial) that link physical forcing mechanisms to biogeochemical responses that impact the characteristics of the seasonal cycle of phytoplankton and by extension the BCP. This approach highlights the potential for integrating autonomous and remote sensing observations of fine scale dynamics to derive regionally optimized biogeochemical parameterizations for Southern Ocean models. Ongoing development in both the observational and modelling fields will generate new insights into Southern Ocean ecosystem function for improved predictions of the sensitivity of the Southern Ocean BCP to climate change. 22 Copyright: 2023 The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Smart Places Ocean Systems and Climate |
|---|