International audienceWe discuss the distributions and transports of the main water masses in the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre (NASPG) for the mean of the period 2002–2010 (OVIDE sections 2002–2010 every other year), as well as the inter-annual variability of the water mass structure from 1997 (4x and METEOR sections) to 2010. The water mass structure of the NASPG, quantitatively assessed by means of an Optimum MultiParameter analysis (with 14 water masses), was combined with the velocity fields resulting from previous studies using inverse models to obtain the water mass volume transports. We also evaluate the relative contribution to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) of the main water masses characterizing the NASPG, identifying the water masses that contribute to the AMOC variability. The reduction of the magnitude of the upper limb of the AMOC between 1997 and the 2000s is associated with the reduction in the northward transport of the Central Waters. This reduction of the northward flow of the AMOC is partially compensated by the reduction of the southward flow of the lower limb of the AMOC, associated with the decrease in the transports of Polar Intermediate Water and Subpolar Mode Water (SPMW) in the Irminger Basin. We also decompose the flow over the Reykjanes Ridge from the East North Atlantic Basin to the Irminger Basin (9.4 ± 4.7 Sv) into the contributions of the Central Waters (2.1 ± 1.8 Sv), Labrador Sea Water (LSW, 2.4 ± 2.0 Sv), Subarctic Intermediate Water (SAIW, 4.0 ± 0.5 Sv) and Iceland–Scotland Overflow Water (ISOW, 0.9 ± 0.9 Sv). Once LSW and ISOW cross over the Reykjanes Ridge, favoured by the strong mixing around it, they leave the Irminger Basin through the deep-to-bottom levels. The results also give insights into the water mass transformations within the NASPG, such as the contribution of the Central Waters and SAIW to the formation of the different varieties of SPMW due to air–sea interaction
Uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean declined rapidly between 1990 and 2006. This reduction in carbon dioxide uptake was related to warming at the sea surface, which-according to model simulations-coincided with a reduction in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. The extent to which the slowdown of this circulation system-which transports warm surface waters to the northern high latitudes, and cool deep waters south-contributed to the reduction in carbon uptake has remained uncertain. Here, we use data on the oceanic transport of volume, heat and carbon dioxide to track carbon dioxide uptake in the subtropical and subpolar regions of the North Atlantic Ocean over the past two decades. We separate anthropogenic carbon from natural carbon by assuming that the latter corresponds to a pre-industrial atmosphere, whereas the remaining is anthropogenic. We find that the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide-released by human activities-occurred almost exclusively in the subtropical gyre. In contrast, natural carbon dioxide uptake-which results from natural Earth system processes-dominated in the subpolar gyre. We attribute the weakening of contemporary carbon dioxide uptake in the subpolar North Atlantic to a reduction in the natural component. We show that the slowdown of the meridional overturning circulation was largely responsible for the reduction in carbon uptake, through a reduction of oceanic heat loss to the atmosphere, and for the concomitant decline in anthropogenic CO 2 storage in subpolar waters. 2. However, air-sea CO 2 uptake in the North Atlantic is not necessarily predominantly anthropogenic 3, 4. In fact, air-sea CO 2 fluxes in the North Atlantic result from anthropogenic forcing and progressive northward cooling of the upper limb of the meridional overturning circulation
Coastal upwelling regions, which are affected by equatorward-wind variability, are among the most productive areas of the oceans. It has been suggested that global warming will lead to a general strengthening of coastal upwelling, with important ecological implications and an impact on fisheries. However, in the case of the Iberian upwelling, the long-term analysis of climatological variables described here reveals a weakening in coastal upwelling. This is linked to a decrease of zonal sea level pressure gradient, and correlated with an observed increase of sea surface temperature and North Atlantic Oscillation. Weakening of coastal upwelling has led to quantifiable modifications of the ecosystem. In outer shelf waters a drop in new production over the last 40 years is likely related to the reduction of sardine landings at local harbors. On the other hand, in inner shelf and Ria waters, the observed weakening of upwelling has slowed down the residual circulation that introduces nutrients to the euphotic layer, and has increased the stability of the water column. The drop in nutrient levels has been compensated by an increase of organic matter remineralization. The phytoplankton community has responded to those environmental trends with an increase in the percentage of dinoflagellates and Pseudonitzschia spp. and a reduction in total diatoms. The former favors the proliferation of harmful algal blooms and reduces the permitted harvesting period for the mussel aquaculture industry. The demise of the sardine fishery and the potential threat to the mussel culture could have serious socio-economic consequences for the region.
In the early 1990s it was hypothesized that the global warming process would produce an increase in sea-land temperature gradients and, subsequently, enhance the wind patterns responsible for coastal upwelling. Hence, an increase in the intensity of coastal upwelling was expected in the main upwelling ecosystems around the world. However, recently published analyses of the evolution of coastal upwelling processes have shown contradictory evidence. For this reason, time series of sea-surface temperature (SST) and the upwelling index I w extracted from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis project database and covering the last 6 decades were studied. The time series analyses focused on the northern part of the Canary Current System and included comparisons with upwelling systems off NW Africa, California, Benguela and Peru. Climatic indices, including the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, Eastern Atlantic Pattern, Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation Index and North Atlantic Oscillation, were investigated to explain the variability found in the NCEP/NCAR time series. A general sea-surface warming and weakening of the upwelling intensity in the Iberian/ Canary and NW African regions were found and these have intensified in the last 4 decades. These trends were clearly observed in winter and autumn for both regions, and a weakening in the upwelling intensity was also detected in summer in the NW African region. The North Atlantic Oscillation and the Eastern Atlantic Pattern indices correlated with both SST and I w , particularly in winter and spring, and also with both the Iberian/ Canary and NW African regions. No clear trend was found for the California region, while, conforming to the hypothesis, the Benguela region exhibited enhancement of upwelling, but only slight sea-surface warming. In contrast, the Peru region indicated a weakening of upwelling accompanied by marginal sea-surface warming.
We estimate anthropogenic carbon (Canth) accumulation rates in the Pacific Ocean between 1991 and 2017 from 14 hydrographic sections that have been occupied two to four times over the past few decades, with most sections having been recently measured as part of the Global Ocean Ship‐based Hydrographic Investigations Program. The rate of change of Canth is estimated using a new method that combines the extended multiple linear regression method with improvements to address the challenges of analyzing multiple occupations of sections spaced irregularly in time. The Canth accumulation rate over the top 1,500 m of the Pacific increased from 8.8 (±1.1, 1σ) Pg of carbon per decade between 1995 and 2005 to 11.7 (±1.1) PgC per decade between 2005 and 2015. For the entire Pacific, about half of this decadal increase in the accumulation rate is attributable to the increase in atmospheric CO2, while in the South Pacific subtropical gyre this fraction is closer to one fifth. This suggests a substantial enhancement of the accumulation of Canth in the South Pacific by circulation variability and implies that a meaningful portion of the reinvigoration of the global CO2 sink that occurred between ~2000 and ~2010 could be driven by enhanced ocean Canth uptake and advection into this gyre. Our assessment suggests that the accuracy of Canth accumulation rate reconstructions along survey lines is limited by the accuracy of the full suite of hydrographic data and that a continuation of repeated surveys is a critical component of future carbon cycle monitoring.
The western basin of the South Atlantic from 10ºN to 55ºS and from the coast to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a region with large uncertainties as to the storage of anthropogenic CO 2 (Cant). Our analysis of data of the last three decades provides a Cant storage rate of 0.92 ±0.13 mol m-2 y-1 , i.e., 13%-35% higher than previous estimates in this area. The low but significant Cant concentrations ([Cant]) in the large volume of relatively well ventilated Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) may well be the underlying cause of this higher storage rate. In fact, the significant contribution in terms of Cant of this ventilated AABW that enters the western South Atlantic Ocean was calculated to be 0.055 ± 0.02 Pg C y-1 or 0.20 mol m-2 y-1. Instead of being based on the annual trend, the Cant specific inventory (in mol m-2) evolution is more consistently computed as a function of the atmospheric xCO 2 perturbation in ppm, (0.64 mol m-2 ppm-1). This methodology allows improved projections of Cant storage rates over long periods. *Manuscript Click here to download Manuscript: Rios-WSA.doc Click here to view linked References
Mesoscale eddies play a key role in modulating physical and biogeochemical properties across the global ocean. They also play a central role in cross‐frontal transport of heat, freshwater, and carbon, especially in the Southern Ocean. However, the role that eddies play in the biogeochemical cycles is not yet well constrained, partly due to a lack of observations below the surface. Here, we use hydrographic data from two voyages, conducted in the austral summer and autumn, to document the vertical biogeochemical structure of two mesoscale cyclonic eddies and quantify the role of these eddies in the meridional transport of nutrients across the Subantarctic Front. Our study demonstrates that the nutrient distribution is largely driven by eddy dynamics, yielding identical eddy structure below the mixed layer in both seasons. This result allowed us to relate nutrient content to dynamic height and estimate the average transport by eddies across the Subantarctic Front. We found that relative to Subantarctic Zone waters, long‐lived cold‐core eddies carry nitrate anomalies of 1.6±0.2×1010 moles and silicate anomalies of −5.5±0.7×1010 moles across the fronts each year. This cross‐frontal transport of nutrients has negligible impact on Subantarctic Zone productivity; however, it has potential to modify the nutrient content of mode waters that are exported from the Southern Ocean to lower latitudes.
Abstract. Biogeochemical change in the water masses of the Southern Ocean, south of Tasmania, was assessed for the 16-year period between 1995 and 2011 using data from four summer repeats of the WOCE-JGOFS-CLIVAR-GO-SHIP (Key et al., 2015;Olsen et al., 2016) SR03 hydrographic section (at ∼ 140 • E). Changes in temperature, salinity, oxygen, and nutrients were used to disentangle the effect of solubility, biology, circulation and anthropogenic carbon (C ANT ) uptake on the variability of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) for eight water mass layers defined by neutral surfaces (γ n ). C ANT was estimated using an improved back-calculation method. Warming (∼ 0.0352 ± 0.0170 • C yr −1 ) of Subtropical Central Water (STCW) and Antarctic Surface Water (AASW) layers decreased their gas solubility, and accordingly DIC concentrations increased less rapidly than expected from equilibration with rising atmospheric CO 2 (∼ 0.86 ± 0.16 µmol kg −1 yr −1 versus ∼ 1 ± 0.12 µmol kg −1 yr −1 ). An increase in apparent oxygen utilisation (AOU) occurred in these layers due to either remineralisation of organic matter or intensification of upwelling. The range of estimates for the increases in C ANT were 0.71 ± 0.08 to 0.93 ± 0.08 µmol kg −1 yr −1 for STCW and 0.35 ± 0.14 to 0.65 ± 0.21 µmol kg −1 yr −1 for AASW, with the lower values in each water mass obtained by assigning all the AOU change to remineralisation. DIC increases in the Sub-Antarctic Mode Water (SAMW, 1.10 ± 0.14 µmol kg −1 yr −1 ) and Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW, 0.40 ± 0.15 µmol kg −1 yr −1 ) layers were similar to the calculated C ANT trends. For SAMW, the C ANT increase tracked rising atmospheric CO 2 . As a consequence of the general DIC increase, decreases in total pH (pH T ) and aragonite saturation ( Ar ) were found in most water masses, with the upper ocean and the SAMW layer presenting the largest trends for pH T decrease (∼ −0.0031 ± 0.0004 yr −1 ). DIC increases in deep and bottom layers (∼ 0.24 ± 0.04 µmol kg −1 yr −1 ) resulted from the advection of old deep waters to resupply increased upwelling, as corroborated by increasing silicate (∼ 0.21 ± 0.07 µmol kg −1 yr −1 ), which also reached the upper layers near the Antarctic Divergence (∼ 0.36 ± 0.06 µmol kg −1 yr −1 ) and was accompanied by an increase in salinity. The observed changes in DIC over the 16-year span caused a shoaling (∼ 340 m) of the aragonite saturation depth (ASD, Ar = 1) within Upper Circumpolar Deep Water that followed the upwelling path of this layer. From all our results, we conclude a scenario of increased transport of deep waters into the section and enhanced upwelling at high latitudes for the period between 1995 and 2011 linked to strong westerly winds. Although enhanced upwelling lowered the capacity of the AASW layer to uptake atmospheric CO 2 , it did not limit that of the newly forming SAMW and AAIW, which exhibited C ANT storage rates (∼ 0.41 ± 0.20 mol m −2 yr −1 ) twice that of the upper layers.
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