Enhanced role of eddies in the Arctic marine biological pump

The future conditions of Arctic sea ice and marine ecosystems are of interest not only to climate scientists, but also to economic and governmental bodies. However, the lack of widespread, year-long biogeochemical observations remains an obstacle to understanding the complicated variability of the A...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature Communications
Main Authors: Watanabe, Eiji, Onodera, Jonaotaro, Harada, Naomi, Honda, Makio C., Kimoto, Katsunori, Kikuchi, Takashi, Nishino, Shigeto, Matsuno, Kohei, Yamaguchi, Atsushi, Ishida, Akio, Kishi, Michio J.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Nature Pub. Group 2014
Subjects:
Article
Arctic
Arctic Ocean
Pacific
Arctic Basin
Sea ice
Subarctic
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4055836
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24862402
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4950
Description
Summary:The future conditions of Arctic sea ice and marine ecosystems are of interest not only to climate scientists, but also to economic and governmental bodies. However, the lack of widespread, year-long biogeochemical observations remains an obstacle to understanding the complicated variability of the Arctic marine biological pump. Here we show an early winter maximum of sinking biogenic flux in the western Arctic Ocean and illustrate the importance of shelf-break eddies to biological pumping from wide shelves to adjacent deep basins using a combination of year-long mooring observations and three-dimensional numerical modelling. The sinking flux trapped in the present study included considerable fresh organic material with soft tissues and was an order of magnitude larger than previous estimates. We predict that further reductions in sea ice will promote the entry of Pacific-origin biological species into the Arctic basin and accelerate biogeochemical cycles connecting the Arctic and subarctic oceans.

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