scholarly journals In situ measurements of thermal diffusivity in sediments of the methane-rich zone of Cascadia Margin, NE Pacific Ocean

Elem Sci Anth ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kira Homola ◽  
H. Paul Johnson ◽  
Casey Hearn

Abstract Thermal diffusivity (TD) is a measure of the temperature response of a material to external thermal forcing. In this study, TD values for marine sediments were determined in situ at two locations on the Cascadia Margin using an instrumented sediment probe deployed by a remotely operated vehicle. TD measurements in this area of the NE Pacific Ocean are important for characterizing the upslope edge of the methane hydrate stability zone, which is the climate-sensitive boundary of a global-scale carbon reservoir. The probe was deployed on the Cascadia Margin at water depths of 552 and 1049 m for a total of 6 days at each site. The instrumented probe consisted of four thermistors aligned vertically, one sensor exposed to the bottom water and one each at 5, 10, and 15 cm within the sediment. Results from each deployment were analyzed using a thermal conduction model applying a range of TD values to obtain the best fit with the experimental data. TD values corresponding to the lowest standard deviations from the numerical model runs were selected as the best approximations. Overall TDs of Cascadia Margin sediments of 4.33 and 1.15 × 10–7 m2 s–1 were calculated for the two deployments. These values, the first of their kind to be determined from in situ measurements on a methane hydrate-rich continental margin, are expected to be useful in the development of models of bottom-water temperature increases and their implications on a global scale.

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Laurent ◽  
K. Fennel ◽  
R. Wilson ◽  
J. Lehrter ◽  
R. Devereux

Abstract. Diagenetic processes are important drivers of water column biogeochemistry in coastal areas. For example, sediment oxygen consumption can be a significant contributor to oxygen depletion in hypoxic systems, and sediment–water nutrient fluxes support primary productivity in the overlying water column. Moreover, nonlinearities develop between bottom water conditions and sediment–water fluxes due to loss of oxygen-dependent processes in the sediment as oxygen becomes depleted in bottom waters. Yet, sediment–water fluxes of chemical species are often parameterized crudely in coupled physical–biogeochemical models, using simple linear parameterizations that are only poorly constrained by observations. Diagenetic models that represent sediment biogeochemistry are available, but rarely are coupled to water column biogeochemical models because they are computationally expensive. Here, we apply a method that efficiently parameterizes sediment–water fluxes of oxygen, nitrate and ammonium by combining in situ measurements, a diagenetic model and a parameter optimization method. As a proof of concept, we apply this method to the Louisiana Shelf where high primary production, stimulated by excessive nutrient loads from the Mississippi–Atchafalaya River system, promotes the development of hypoxic bottom waters in summer. The parameterized sediment–water fluxes represent nonlinear feedbacks between water column and sediment processes at low bottom water oxygen concentrations, which may persist for long periods (weeks to months) in hypoxic systems such as the Louisiana Shelf. This method can be applied to other systems and is particularly relevant for shallow coastal and estuarine waters where the interaction between sediment and water column is strong and hypoxia is prone to occur due to land-based nutrient loads.


2008 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Guttormsen ◽  
Christopher D. Wilson

Abstract Guttormsen, M. A. and Wilson, C. D. 2009. In situ measurements of capelin (Mallotus villosus) target strength in the North Pacific Ocean. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 258–263. In situ measurements of capelin (Mallotus villosus) target strength (TS) were collected during summer 2001–2003 near Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska, using a calibrated EK500 echosounder with 38 and 120 kHz split-beam transducers. Targets were detected over dispersed, night-time aggregations using standard acoustic methods, then filtered using a quality-control algorithm to reject invalid targets. The 38 kHz-based, fitted model estimate was TS = 20 log10L− 70.3 (r2 = 0.30), where L is total length of fish. Compared with other studies, the TS-fitted model at 38 kHz was similar to that calculated from swimbladder morphology measurements from St Lawrence estuary capelin (TS = 20 log10L− 69.3), but resulted in greater estimates than models based on in situ measurements of capelin TS in the Barents Sea (TS = 19.1 log10L−74.0) and northern Atlantic Ocean (TS = 20 log10L − 73.1). The large intraspecific variability exhibited in the fitted TS – L models for this species suggests the use of TS measurements from the geographic region where the data were collected.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelica Tarpanelli ◽  
Karina Nielsen ◽  
Paolo Filippucci ◽  
Rossella Belloni ◽  
Stefania Camici ◽  
...  

<p>RIDESAT - RIver flow monitoring and Discharge Estimation by integrating multiple SATellite data, is an ESA-funded Permanent Open Call project aimed to develop a new methodology for estimating river discharge through the combination of radar altimeter, optical and thermal satellite sensors. The combination of multi-sensor measurements can provide significant advantages over single sensors contributing to improve the quality of the final products also in terms of spatial and temporal coverage.</p><p>The methodology developed in the project includes two phases. First, the single-instrument products (altimeter, optical and thermal sensors) are independently processed to generate a dataset of proxies of hydraulic variables strongly linked with river discharge (e.g. water level, flow velocity, width). Successively, these proxies are implemented as integrated techniques for the final estimation of the river discharge.</p><p>To test the ability of the approach to retrieve river discharge at global scale, 20 pilot sites are selected all over the world, based on the availability of in-situ measurements and the climatic characteristics of the basins. The availability of large datasets of in situ measurements is used for: 1) the validation of single-instrument products and the river discharge product; 2) the evaluation of the uncertainty attributed to the combination process; 3) the evaluation of the limitation of the procedure.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Lloyd ◽  
Martin Gallagher ◽  
Tom Choularton ◽  
Martina Krämer ◽  
Andreas Petzold ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles A. Brock ◽  
Karl D. Froyd ◽  
Maximilian Dollner ◽  
Christina J. Williamson ◽  
Gregory Schill ◽  
...  

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