scholarly journals Tidal mixing of estuarine and coastal waters in the Western English Channel controls spatial and temporal variability in seawater CO<sub>2</sub>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Peter Sims ◽  
Michael Bedington ◽  
Ute Schuster ◽  
Andrew Watson ◽  
Vassilis Kitidis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Surface Water ◽  
Coastal Waters ◽  
Tidal Cycle ◽  
Co2 Flux ◽  
Open Ocean ◽  
Tidal Mixing ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Surface Salinity ◽  
Estuarine Coastal

Abstract. Surface ocean CO2 measurements are used to compute the oceanic air–sea CO2 flux. The CO2 flux component from rivers and estuaries is uncertain. Estuarine and coastal water carbon dioxide (CO2) observations are relatively few compared to observations in the open ocean. The contribution of these regions to the global air–sea CO2 flux remains uncertain due to systematic under-sampling. Existing high-quality CO2 instrumentation predominantly utilise showerhead and percolating style equilibrators optimised for open ocean observations. The intervals between measurements made with such instrumentation make it difficult to resolve the fine-scale spatial variability of surface water CO2 at timescales relevant to the high frequency variability in estuarine and coastal environments. Here we present a novel dataset with unprecedented frequency and spatial resolution transects made at the Western Channel Observatory in the south west of the UK from June to September 2016, using a fast response seawater CO2 system. Novel observations were made along the estuarine–coastal continuum at different stages of the tide and reveal distinct spatial patterns in the surface water CO2 fugacity (fCO2) at different stages of the tidal cycle. Changes in salinity and fCO2 were closely correlated at all stages of the tidal cycle and suggest that the mixing of oceanic and riverine end members determines the variations in fCO2. The observations demonstrate the complex dynamics determining spatial and temporal patterns of salinity and fCO2 in the region. Spatial variations in observed surface salinity were used to validate the output of a regional high resolution hydrodynamic model. The model enables a novel estimate of the air–sea CO2 flux in the estuarine–coastal zone. Air–sea CO2 flux variability in the estuarine–coastal boundary region is dominated by the state of the tide because of strong CO2 outgassing from the river plume. The observations and model output demonstrate that undersampling the complex tidal and mixing processes characteristic of estuarine and coastal environment bias quantification of air-sea CO2 fluxes in coastal waters. The results provide a mechanism to support critical national and regional policy implementation by reducing uncertainty in carbon budgets.

scholarly journals Carbon dynamics and CO<sub>2</sub> air-sea exchanges in the eutrophied coastal waters of the Southern Bight of the North Sea: a modelling study

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Gypens ◽  
C. Lancelot ◽  
A. V. Borges
Keyword(s):  
Surface Water ◽  
Coastal Zone ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Coastal Waters ◽  
Co2 Flux ◽  
Open Ocean ◽  
Atmospheric Co2 ◽  
Southern Bight ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea

Abstract. A description of the carbonate system has been incorporated in the MIRO biogeochemical model to investigate the contribution of diatom and Phaeocystis blooms to the seasonal dynamics of air-sea CO2 exchanges in the Eastern Channel and Southern Bight of the North Sea, with focus on the eutrophied Belgian coastal waters. For this application, the model was implemented in a simplified three-box representation of the hydrodynamics with the open ocean boundary box ‘Western English Channel’ (WCH) and the ‘French Coastal Zone’ (FCZ) and ‘Belgian Coastal Zone’ (BCZ) boxes receiving carbon and nutrients from the rivers Seine and Scheldt, respectively. Results were obtained by running the model for the 1996–1999 period. The simulated partial pressures of CO2 (pCO2) were successfully compared with data recorded over the same period in the central BCZ at station 330 (51°26.05′ N; 002°48.50′ E). Budget calculations based on model simulations of carbon flow rates indicated for BCZ a low annual sink of atmospheric CO2 (−0.17 mol C m-2 y-1). On the opposite, surface water pCO2 in WCH was estimated to be at annual equilibrium with respect to atmospheric CO2. The relative contribution of biological, chemical and physical processes to the modelled seasonal variability of pCO2 in BCZ was further explored by running model scenarios with separate closures of biological activities and/or river inputs of carbon. The suppression of biological processes reversed direction of the CO2 flux in BCZ that became, on an annual scale, a significant source for atmospheric CO2 (+0.53 mol C m-2 y-1). Overall biological activity had a stronger influence on the modelled seasonal cycle of pCO2 than temperature. Especially Phaeocystis colonies which growth in spring were associated with an important sink of atmospheric CO2 that counteracted the temperature-driven increase of pCO2 at this period of the year. However, river inputs of organic and inorganic carbon were shown to increase the surface water pCO2 and hence the emission of CO2 to the atmosphere. Same calculations conducted in WCH, showed that temperature was the main factor controlling the seasonal pCO2 cycle in these open ocean waters. The effect of interannual variations of fresh water discharge (and related nutrient and carbon inputs), temperature and wind speed was further explored by running scenarios with forcing typical of two contrasted years (1996 and 1999). Based on these simulations, the model predicts significant variations in the intensity and direction of the annual air-sea CO2 flux.

scholarly journals Effects of bottom topography on dynamics of river discharges in tidal regions: case study of twin plumes in Taiwan Strait

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 1149-1189
Author(s):  
K. A. Korotenko ◽  
A. A. Osadchiev ◽  
P. O. Zavialov ◽  
R.-C. Kao ◽  
C.-F. Ding
Keyword(s):  
Bottom Topography ◽  
River Mouth ◽  
Taiwan Strait ◽  
Ocean Model ◽  
Tidal Mixing ◽  
Eastern Coast ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Surface Salinity ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Tracking Model

Abstract. The Princeton Ocean Model is used to investigate the intratidal variability of currents and turbulent mixing and their impact on the characteristics and evolution of the plumes of two neighboring rivers, the Zhuoshui River and the Wu River, at the central eastern coast of Taiwan Strait. The two estuaries are located close to each other and their conditions are similar in many respects, and yet the two plumes exhibit significantly different behavior. We explain this through differences of the bottom topography in the areas adjacent to the two river mouths. The Zhuoshui River runs into a shallow area that is permanently exposed to strong tidal mixing, while the Wu River mouth is located in a deeper, stratified area outside the region of intense mixing. This destruction of the plume by tidal mixing is confirmed by the results of numerical modeling with POM. The spatial and temporal variability of turbulent kinetic energy and its production rate in the study region, as well as the horizontal diffusivity, are analyzed with the emphasis given to the dependence of the turbulence parameters on the bottom topography on the one hand and their influence on the river plumes on the other. Further, we use a Lagrangian particle tracking model in combination with POM to investigate the effect of the tidal wetting-and-drying (WAD) of land taking place near the Zhuoshui estuary, and demonstrate that WAD leads to significant reduction of the plume extent and surface salinity deficit near the river mouth. We use observational data from a short field campaign in the study area to tune and validate the model experiments.

scholarly journals Effects of bottom topography on dynamics of river discharges in tidal regions: case study of twin plumes in Taiwan Strait

Ocean Science ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 863-879 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. A. Korotenko ◽  
A. A. Osadchiev ◽  
P. O. Zavialov ◽  
R.-C. Kao ◽  
C.-F. Ding
Keyword(s):  
Turbulent Mixing ◽  
Bottom Topography ◽  
River Estuary ◽  
River Mouth ◽  
Taiwan Strait ◽  
Tidal Mixing ◽  
Eastern Coast ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Surface Salinity ◽  
Tracking Model

Abstract. The Princeton Ocean Model (POM) is used to investigate the intratidal variability of currents and turbulent mixing and their impact on the characteristics and evolution of the plumes of two neighbouring rivers, the Zhuoshui River and the Wu River, at the central eastern coast of Taiwan Strait. The two estuaries are located close to each other and their conditions are similar in many respects, and yet the two plumes exhibit significantly different behaviour. We explain this through differences of the bottom topography in the areas adjacent to the two river mouths. The Zhuoshui River runs into a shallow area that is permanently exposed to strong tidal mixing, while the Wu River mouth is located in a deeper, stratified area outside the region of intense mixing. This destruction of the plume by tidal mixing is confirmed by the results of numerical modeling with POM. The spatial and temporal variability of turbulent kinetic energy, the rates of its production by shear and destruction rate by buoyancy in the study, as well as the horizontal diffusivity, are analysed with the emphasis given to the dependence of the turbulence parameters on the bottom topography on the one hand and their influence on the river plumes on the other. The results of the study support the central hypothesis of this paper: the dynamic behaviours of the Zhuoshui and Wu plumes are different because their evolution occurs under different regimes of bottom-generated turbulent mixing. Further, we use a Lagrangian particle tracking model in combination with POM to investigate the effect of the tidal wetting-and-drying (WAD) near the Zhuoshui River estuary, and demonstrate that WAD leads to significant reduction of the plume extent and surface salinity deficit near the river mouth. We use observational data from a short field campaign in the study area to tune and validate the model experiments.

scholarly journals Global high-resolution monthly <i>p</i>CO<sub>2</sub> climatology for the coastal ocean derived from neural network interpolation

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (19) ◽  
pp. 4545-4561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Goulven G. Laruelle ◽  
Peter Landschützer ◽  
Nicolas Gruber ◽  
Jean-Louis Tison ◽  
Bruno Delille ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Seasonal Variations ◽  
Open Ocean ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Strong Increase ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Surface Ocean ◽  
Shelf Seas ◽  
Artificial Neural Network Method

Abstract. In spite of the recent strong increase in the number of measurements of the partial pressure of CO2 in the surface ocean (pCO2), the air–sea CO2 balance of the continental shelf seas remains poorly quantified. This is a consequence of these regions remaining strongly under-sampled in both time and space and of surface pCO2 exhibiting much higher temporal and spatial variability in these regions compared to the open ocean. Here, we use a modified version of a two-step artificial neural network method (SOM-FFN; Landschützer et al., 2013) to interpolate the pCO2 data along the continental margins with a spatial resolution of 0.25° and with monthly resolution from 1998 to 2015. The most important modifications compared to the original SOM-FFN method are (i) the much higher spatial resolution and (ii) the inclusion of sea ice and wind speed as predictors of pCO2. The SOM-FFN is first trained with pCO2 measurements extracted from the SOCATv4 database. Then, the validity of our interpolation, in both space and time, is assessed by comparing the generated pCO2 field with independent data extracted from the LDVEO2015 database. The new coastal pCO2 product confirms a previously suggested general meridional trend of the annual mean pCO2 in all the continental shelves with high values in the tropics and dropping to values beneath those of the atmosphere at higher latitudes. The monthly resolution of our data product permits us to reveal significant differences in the seasonality of pCO2 across the ocean basins. The shelves of the western and northern Pacific, as well as the shelves in the temperate northern Atlantic, display particularly pronounced seasonal variations in pCO2,  while the shelves in the southeastern Atlantic and in the southern Pacific reveal a much smaller seasonality. The calculation of temperature normalized pCO2 for several latitudes in different oceanic basins confirms that the seasonality in shelf pCO2 cannot solely be explained by temperature-induced changes in solubility but are also the result of seasonal changes in circulation, mixing and biological productivity. Our results also reveal that the amplitudes of both thermal and nonthermal seasonal variations in pCO2 are significantly larger at high latitudes. Finally, because this product's spatial extent includes parts of the open ocean as well, it can be readily merged with existing global open-ocean products to produce a true global perspective of the spatial and temporal variability of surface ocean pCO2.

scholarly journals Carbon cycling in the North American coastal ocean: A synthesis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Fennel ◽  
Simone Alin ◽  
Leticia Barbero ◽  
Wiley Evans ◽  
Timotheé Bourgeois ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
North American ◽  
Inorganic Carbon ◽  
Co2 Flux ◽  
Carbon Fluxes ◽  
Coastal Ocean ◽  
Open Ocean ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
The North ◽  
Anthropogenic Carbon

Abstract. A quantification of carbon fluxes in the coastal ocean and across its boundaries, specifically the air-sea, land-to-coastal-ocean and coastal-to-open-ocean interfaces, is important for assessing the current state and projecting future trends in ocean carbon uptake and coastal ocean acidification, but is currently a missing component of global carbon budgeting. This synthesis reviews recent progress in characterizing these carbon fluxes with focus on the North American coastal ocean. Several observing networks and high-resolution regional models are now available. Recent efforts have focused primarily on quantifying net air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2). Some studies have estimated other key fluxes, such as the exchange of organic and inorganic carbon between shelves and the open ocean. Available estimates of air-sea CO2 flux, informed by more than a decade of observations, indicate that the North American margins act as a net sink for atmospheric CO2. This net uptake is driven primarily by the high-latitude regions. The estimated magnitude of the net flux is 160 ± 80 Tg C/y for the North American Exclusive Economic Zone, a number that is not well constrained. The increasing concentration of inorganic carbon in coastal and open-ocean waters leads to ocean acidification. As a result conditions favouring dissolution of calcium carbonate occur regularly in subsurface coastal waters in the Arctic, which are naturally prone to low pH, and the North Pacific, where upwelling of deep, carbon-rich waters has intensified and, in combination with the uptake of anthropogenic carbon, leads to low seawater pH and aragonite saturation states during the upwelling season. Expanded monitoring and extension of existing model capabilities are required to provide more reliable coastal carbon budgets, projections of future states of the coastal ocean, and quantification of anthropogenic carbon contributions.

scholarly journals Spatial and Temporal Variability of Soil CO2 Flux in Sugarcane Green Harvest Systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose Luiza Moraes Tavares ◽  
Zigomar Menezes de Souza ◽  
Newton La Scala Jr ◽  
Guilherme Adalberto Ferreira Castioni ◽  
Gustavo Soares de Souza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Co2 Flux ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Soil Co2 ◽  
Soil Co2 Flux

scholarly journals A global eddying hindcast ocean simulation with OFES2

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3319-3336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hideharu Sasaki ◽  
Shinichiro Kida ◽  
Ryo Furue ◽  
Hidenori Aiki ◽  
Nobumasa Komori ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Ocean General Circulation Model ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Sea Surface Salinity ◽  
Tidal Mixing ◽  
Surface Salinity ◽  
Previous Version ◽  
Spatiotemporal Scales ◽  
The Kuroshio

Abstract. A quasi-global eddying ocean hindcast simulation using a new version of our model, called OFES2 (Ocean General Circulation Model for the Earth Simulator version 2), was conducted to overcome several issues with unrealistic properties in its previous version, OFES. This paper describes the model and the simulated oceanic fields in OFES2 compared with OFES and also observed data. OFES2 includes a sea-ice model and a tidal mixing scheme, is forced by a newly created surface atmospheric dataset called JRA55-do, and simulated the oceanic fields from 1958 to 2016. We found several improvements in OFES2 over OFES: smaller biases in the global sea surface temperature and sea surface salinity as well as the water mass properties in the Indonesian and Arabian seas. The time series of the Niño3.4 and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) indexes are somewhat better in OFES2 than in OFES. Unlike the previous version, OFES2 reproduces more realistic anomalously low sea surface temperatures during a positive IOD event. One possible cause of these improvements in El Niño and IOD events is the replacement of the atmospheric dataset. On the other hand, several issues remained unrealistic, such as the pathways of the Kuroshio and Gulf Stream and the unrealistic spreading of salty Mediterranean overflow. Given the worldwide use of the previous version and the improvements presented here, the output from OFES2 will be useful in studying various oceanic phenomena with broad spatiotemporal scales.

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