This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) is being made to a research team at the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Sciences (BIOS) in response to an urgent need for seawater inorganic carbon measurements for the US GEOTRACES Zonal North Atlantic Survey Section. An initial cruise was aborted in late 2010 because of serious mechanical failure in the research vessel; the remainder of the North Atlantic study has been rescheduled for completion with a resumption of the cruise in October 2011.
In collaboration with other GEOTRACES colleagues at the University of Miami, the effort of the BIOS team will be focused on collecting samples for dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA), laboratory analyses of these samples, and subsequent entrainment/merging of these datasets into the U.S. GEOTRACES Zonal North Atlantic Survey Section core hydrography/bottle dataset for distribution to the project investigators and the broader scientific community. In total, 600 samples will be collected for this cruise with 300 samples being analyzed at BIOS and 300 samples analyzed at RSMAS. Approximately 200 samples were collected on the aborted 2010 cruise, and once returned to respective labs will be analyzed for DIC and TA. Additional samples will be collected on the resumed 2011 GEOTRACES cruises with samples analyzed in respective labs, and the entire dataset undergoing standard QC/QA protocols.
Broader Impacts. It is widely agreed that the ocean biogeochemical research community needs a global view of the key and ancillary GEOTRACES properties. The major impact of this project will be its contribution to the U.S. GEOTRACES Zonal North Atlantic Survey Section through measurements of inorganic carbon. This contributes broadly to improved understanding of the inorganic carbon cycle in the North Atlantic Ocean. Although no graduate student is supported, this award will support improved skills of two research technicians, and data will be incorporated into a teaching module about the ocean carbon cycle for the Nippon Foundation-POGO centre of excellence at BIOS.
This primary goal of this proposal (submitted through the Rapid Response Research (RAPID) funding mechanism) was for funding to allow collection and analysis of seawater inorganic carbon measurements for the US GEOTRACES Zonal North Atlantic Survey Section. This cruise was aborted in late 2010 and completed in October 2011. This award contributed to the collection of carbon dioxide data in the North Atlantic Ocean between Africa and US. Knowledge of carbon dioxide distributions also aided in providing information about ocean pH which in turn provides important information for understanding the chemical speciation and kinetics of trace elements and isotopes, one of the main goals of the overarching GEOTRACES scientific program. It is widely agreed that the ocean biogeochemical research community needs a global view of the key and ancillary GEOTRACES properties. The major impact of this project has been its contribution to the U.S. GEOTRACES Zonal North Atlantic Survey Section through measurements of inorganic carbon.This award has improved our knowledge of change in the ocean carbon cycle in the North Atlantic. Data generated from the award represents the first inorganic carbon/carbon dioxide data collected in the oxygen minimumn zone between the African coast and the Cape Verde Islands. Secondly, the data generated from the project allowed estimates of the change in the uptake of human produced carbon dioxide into the North Atlantic. We find that the North Atlantic inventory of anthropogenic carbon dioxide has increased over the last decade but also that the subtropical gyre has accumulated nitrate and DIC from enhanced remineralization of organic matter produced in the euphotic zone (uppermost, lighted zone of the ocean). Our data indicates that there has been an increase in phytoplankton primary production over the last decade that appears to reflect the changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (i.e., a transtion to negative state) which reflects boradscale change in atmospheric/climate forcing in the region. This contributes broadly to improved understanding of the inorganic carbon cycle in the North Atlantic Ocean. Although no graduate studentwas supported directly by the award, this award supported training and enhancement of skills of two research technicians. The data was incorporated into a graduate teaching module on chemical oceanography and the carbon cycle for the BIOS centre of excellence in observational oceanography (CofEOO). One CofEOO scholar, Ze Hiding, conducted his independent research project on the data generated by the award.
