Sea-ice loss accelerates carbon cycling and enhances seasonal extremes of acidification in the Arctic Chukchi Sea

• Published in: Limnology and Oceanography Letters
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yixing, Wu, Yingxu, Cai, Wei-Jun, Yi, Xiangqi, Gao, Xiang, Bi, Haibo, Zhuang, Yanpei, Chen, Liqi, Qi, Di
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Limnology and Oceanography Letters 2024
• Subjects: climate action; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Chukchi; Chukchi Sea; Climate change; Global warming; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/34289

© 2024 The Authors. Limnology and Oceanography Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Chukchi Sea shelf (CSS) is a highly productive region in the Arctic Ocean and it is highly efficient for absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide and exporting and retaining carbon in the deep sea. However, with global warming, the carbon retention time in CSS may decrease, leading to less efficient carbon export. Here, we investigate the seasonal variability of carbonate chemistry in CSS using three sets of late- vs. early-summer reoccupations of the same transect. Our findings demonstrate substantially increased and rapid degradation of biologically produced organic matter and therefore acidification over time in the southern CSS due to earlier sea-ice retreat, resulting in significantly shorter carbon retention time. In sharp contrast, no increased degradation has been observed in the northern CSS where photosynthesis has just commenced. In the future, climate change would further diminish the carbon export capacity and exacerbate seasonal acidification not only within CSS but also across other polar coastal oceans. Scientific Significance Statement The Arctic Chukchi Sea shelf (CSS) is a prominent site for the biological drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which can subsequently be transported to the deep sea in the Arctic Ocean. The efficiency of carbon export is influenced by seasonal sea-ice formation and retreat: longer period of sea-ice opening results in shorter carbon retention time and reduced carbon export due to rapid recycling of organic matter. However, this process is poorly understood due to lack of observations. Here, we present three sets of late- vs. early-summer reoccupations along ...