Atmospheric columnar CO 2 enhancement over E. huxleyi blooms : case studies in the North Atlantic and Arctic waters

• Published in: Proceedings of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Evgenii Morozov, Dmitrii Kondrik, Svetlana Chepikova, Dmitry Pozdnyakov
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Russian
• Published: Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences 2019
• Subjects: satellite remote sensing; oco-2 data; enhancement of atmospheric columnar co2 content over e. huxleyi blooms in subarctic and arctic seas; emiliania huxleyi; wind and atmospheric advection; Science; Q; Arctic; Greenland; Iceland; North Atlantic; North Greenland; Subarctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.17076/lim989; https://doaj.org/article/710ebd72cb714be6a7c4fb719596e471

Blooms of a coccolithophore E. huxleyi are generally huge, occur annually and in the oceans of both Hemispheres. As a calcifying algal species, E. huxleyi is known to enhance the partial pressure of dissolved CO 2 in surface ocean, thus reducing its ability to absorb atmospheric CO 2 . Here we report on the results of our satellite study of CO 2 enhancement in the atmospheric column over E. huxleyi blooms in the North, Greenland, Iceland and Barents seas. The study is based on OCO-2 data, wind force and direction, and E. huxleyi bloom masks developed by us earlier. Eight case studies are discussed herein relating to the time period 2015-2018. The results obtained are strongly indicative that indeed the phenomenon of E. huxleyi blooms noticeably affect the carbon fluxes between the atmosphere and the surface ocean: the quantified enhancement of CO 2 content in the atmospheric column over the bloom area in the six case studies proved to be in the range 0.6 -3.0 ppm. It is also shown that the magnitude of CO 2 enhancement in the atmospheric column is significantly controlled by the air advection in the boundary layer.