Assessing the Potential Impact of River Chemistry on Arctic Coastal Production

• Published in: Frontiers in Marine Science
• Main Authors: Georgina A. Gibson, Scott Elliot, Jaclyn Clement Kinney, Anastasia Piliouras, Nicole Jeffery
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
• Subjects: production; earth system model (ESM); marine ecosystem; coastal; river nutrients; Arctic Ocean; Science; Q; General. Including nature conservation; geographical distribution; QH1-199.5; Arctic; Laptev Sea; Ice; laptev; permafrost; Phytoplankton
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.738363; https://doaj.org/article/3226e91a783c49bf8d6df3891dd1a445

The Arctic coastal margin receives a disproportionately large fraction of the global river discharge. The bio-geochemistry of the river water as it empties into the marine environment reflects inputs and processes that occur as the water travels from its headwaters. Climate-induced changes to Arctic vegetation and permafrost melt may impact river chemistry. Understanding the impact of river nutrients on coastal marine production, and how this may change in the future, are important for resource managers and community members who monitor and rely on coastal food resources. Using the Energy Exascale Earth System Model we explore the impact of timing and river nutrient concentrations on primary production in each coastal Arctic region and then assess how this influences secondary production and particle fluxes supporting the benthic food web. Our results indicate that while the concentration of Arctic river nitrogen can have a significant impact on annual average nitrogen and primary production in the coastal Arctic, with production increases of up to 20% in the river influenced interior Seas, the timing of the river nutrient inputs into the marine environment appears less important. Bloom timing and partitioning between small and large phytoplankton were minimally impacted by both river nutrient concentration and timing, suggesting that in general, coastal Arctic ecosystem dynamics will continue to be primarily driven by light availability, rather than nutrients. Under a doubling river nutrient scenario, the percentage increase in the POC flux to the benthos on river influenced Arctic coastal shelves was 2-4 times the percentage increase in primary production, suggesting changes to the river nutrient concentration has the potential to modify the Arctic food web structure and dynamics. Generally, the nutrient-induced changes to primary production were smaller than changes previously simulated in response to ice reduction and temperature increase. However, in the Laptev Sea, the production increase resulting from a ...