ALBERT

Description: The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) is a synthesis activity by the international marine carbon research community (〉100 contributors). SOCAT version 5 has 21.5 million quality-controlled, surface ocean fCO2 (fugacity of carbon dioxide) observations from 1957 to 2017 for the global oceans and coastal seas. Calibrated sensor data are also available. Automation allows annual, public releases. SOCAT data is discoverable, accessible and citable. SOCAT enables quantification of the ocean carbon sink and ocean acidification and evaluation of ocean biogeochemical models. SOCAT, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2017, represents a milestone in biogeochemical and climate research and in informing policy.

Description: Ocean acidification results in co-varying inorganic carbon system variables. Of these, an explicit focus on pH and organismal acid–base regulation has failed to distinguish the mechanism of failure in highly sensitive bivalve larvae. With unique chemical manipulations of seawater we show definitively that larval shell development and growth are dependent on seawater saturation state, and not on carbon dioxide partial pressure or pH. Although other physiological processes are affected by pH, mineral saturation state thresholds will be crossed decades to centuries ahead of pH thresholds owing to nonlinear changes in the carbonate system variables as carbon dioxide is added. Our findings were repeatable for two species of bivalve larvae could resolve discrepancies in experimental results, are consistent with a previous model of ocean acidification impacts due to rapid calcification in bivalve larvae, and suggest a fundamental ocean acidification bottleneck at early life-history for some marine keystone species.

Description: Increasing anthropogenic carbon dioxide is altering marine carbonate chemistry through a process called ocean acidification. Many calcium carbonate forming organisms are sensitive to changes in marine carbonate chemistry, especially mollusk bivalve larvae at the initial shell building stage. Rapid calcification, limited energy reserves, and more exposed calcification surfaces, are traits at this stage that increase vulnerability to ocean acidification through our previously argued kinetic-energetic hypothesis. These developmental traits are common to broadcast spawning bivalve species that are the focus of most ocean acidification studies to date. Some oyster species brood their young, which results in slower development of the embryos through the initial shell formation stage. We examined the responses of the brooding Olympia oyster, Ostrea lurida, during their initial shell building stage. We extracted fertilized eggs from, O. lurida, prior to shell development, then exposed developing embryos to a wide range of marine carbonate chemistry conditions. Surprisingly, O. lurida showed no acute negative response to any ocean acidification treatments. Compared to the broadcast spawning Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, calcification rate and standardized endogenous energy lipid consumption rate were nearly 10 and 50 times slower, respectively. Our results suggest that slow shell building may lessen the energetic burden of acidification at this stage and provides additional support for our kinetic-energetic hypothesis. Furthermore, these results may represent an example of exaptation; fitness conveyed by a coopted trait that evolved for another purpose, a concept largely lacking in the current perspective of adaptation and global climate change.

Description: Three cohorts of Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) larvae at Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery (WCH) in Netarts Bay, Oregon, were monitored for stable isotope incorporation and biochemical composition: one in May 2011 and two in August 2011. Along with measures of growth and calcification, we present measurements of stable isotopes of carbon in water, algal food, and the shell and tissue, and nitrogen in food and tissue across larval development and growth. These relatively unique measures through larval ontogeny allow us to document isotopic shifts associated with initiation and rate of feeding, and the catabolism of C-rich (lipid) and N-rich (protein) pools. Similar ontological patterns in growth and bulk composition among the cohorts reinforce prior results, suggesting that the creation of the initial shell is energetically expensive, that the major carbon source is ambient dissolved inorganic carbon, and that the major energetic source during this period is maternally derived egg lipids. The May cohort did not isotopically reflect its food source as rapidly as the August cohorts, indicating slower feeding and/or higher catabolism versus anabolism. Our measurements also document differences in bulk turnover of organic carbon and nitrogen pools within the larvae, showing far greater conservation of nitrogen than carbon. These stable isotope and bulk biochemical measurements appear to be more sensitive indicators of sub-lethal environmental stress than the commonly used metrics of development and growth.

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Sutton, A. J., Feely, R. A., Maenner-Jones, S., Musielwicz, S., Osborne, J., Dietrich, C., Monacci, N., Cross, J., Bott, R., Kozyr, A., Andersson, A. J., Bates, N. R., Cai, W., Cronin, M. F., De Carlo, E. H., Hales, B., Howden, S. D., Lee, C. M., Manzello, D. P., McPhaden, M. J., Melendez, M., Mickett, J. B., Newton, J. A., Noakes, S. E., Noh, J. H., Olafsdottir, S. R., Salisbury, J. E., Send, U., Trull, T. W., Vandemark, D. C., & Weller, R. A. Autonomous seawater pCO(2) and pH time series from 40 surface buoys and the emergence of anthropogenic trends. Earth System Science Data, 11(1), (2019):421-439, doi:10.5194/essd-11-421-2019.

Description: Ship-based time series, some now approaching over 3 decades long, are critical climate records that have dramatically improved our ability to characterize natural and anthropogenic drivers of ocean carbon dioxide (CO2) uptake and biogeochemical processes. Advancements in autonomous marine carbon sensors and technologies over the last 2 decades have led to the expansion of observations at fixed time series sites, thereby improving the capability of characterizing sub-seasonal variability in the ocean. Here, we present a data product of 40 individual autonomous moored surface ocean pCO2 (partial pressure of CO2) time series established between 2004 and 2013, 17 also include autonomous pH measurements. These time series characterize a wide range of surface ocean carbonate conditions in different oceanic (17 sites), coastal (13 sites), and coral reef (10 sites) regimes. A time of trend emergence (ToE) methodology applied to the time series that exhibit well-constrained daily to interannual variability and an estimate of decadal variability indicates that the length of sustained observations necessary to detect statistically significant anthropogenic trends varies by marine environment. The ToE estimates for seawater pCO2 and pH range from 8 to 15 years at the open ocean sites, 16 to 41 years at the coastal sites, and 9 to 22 years at the coral reef sites. Only two open ocean pCO2 time series, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Hawaii Ocean Time-series Station (WHOTS) in the subtropical North Pacific and Stratus in the South Pacific gyre, have been deployed longer than the estimated trend detection time and, for these, deseasoned monthly means show estimated anthropogenic trends of 1.9±0.3 and 1.6±0.3 µatm yr−1, respectively. In the future, it is possible that updates to this product will allow for the estimation of anthropogenic trends at more sites; however, the product currently provides a valuable tool in an accessible format for evaluating climatology and natural variability of surface ocean carbonate chemistry in a variety of regions. Data are available at https://doi.org/10.7289/V5DB8043 and https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/ocads/oceans/Moorings/ndp097.html (Sutton et al., 2018).

Description: We gratefully acknowledge the major funders of the pCO2 and pH observations: the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US Department of Commerce, including resources from the Ocean Observing and Monitoring Division of the Climate Program Office (fund reference number 100007298) and the Ocean Acidification Program. We rely on a long list of scientific partners and technical staff who carry out buoy maintenance, sensor deployment, and ancillary measurements at sea. We thank these partners and their funders for their continued efforts in sustaining the platforms that support these long-term pCO2 and pH observations, including the following institutions: the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System, the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System, Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, the Murdock Charitable Trust, the National Data Buoy Center, the National Science Foundation Division of Ocean Sciences, NOAA–Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries Joint Project Agreement, the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems, the Research Moored Array for African-Asian-Australian Monsoon Analysis and Prediction (i.e., RAMA), the University of Washington, the US Integrated Ocean Observing System, and the Washington Ocean Acidification Center. The open ocean sites are part of the OceanSITES program of the Global Ocean Observing System and the Surface Ocean CO2 Observing Network. All sites are also part of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network. This paper is PMEL contribution number 4797.

Description: The role of rising atmospheric CO2 in modulating estuarine carbonate system dynamics remains poorly characterized, likely due to myriad processes driving the complex chemistry in these habitats. We reconstructed the full carbonate system of an estuarine seagrass habitat for a summer period of 2.5 months utilizing a combination of time-series observations and mechanistic modeling, and quantified the roles of aerobic metabolism, mixing, and gas exchange in the observed dynamics. The anthropogenic CO2 burden in the habitat was estimated for the years 1765–2100 to quantify changes in observed high-frequency carbonate chemistry dynamics. The addition of anthropogenic CO2 alters the thermodynamic buffer factors (e.g., the Revelle factor) of the carbonate system, decreasing the seagrass habitat’s ability to buffer natural carbonate system fluctuations. As a result, the most harmful carbonate system indices for many estuarine organisms [minimum pHT, minimum Ωarag, and maximum pCO2(s.w.)] change up to 1.8×, 2.3×, and 1.5× more rapidly than the medians for each parameter, respectively. In this system, the relative benefits of the seagrass habitat in locally mitigating ocean acidification increase with the higher atmospheric CO2 levels predicted toward 2100. Presently, however, these mitigating effects are mixed due to intense diel cycling of CO2 driven by aerobic metabolism. This study provides estimates of how high-frequency pHT, Ωarag, and pCO2(s.w.) dynamics are altered by rising atmospheric CO2 in an estuarine habitat, and highlights nonlinear responses of coastal carbonate parameters to ocean acidification relevant for water quality management.

Description: Calcifying organisms face increasing stress from the changing carbonate chemistry of an acidifying ocean, particularly bivalve larvae that live in upwelling regions of the world, such as the coastal and estuarine waters of Oregon (USA). Arguably the first and most significant developmental hurdle faced by larval oysters is formation of their initial prodissoconch I (PDI) shell, upon which further ontological development depends. We measured the minor metal compositions (Sr/Ca, Mg/Ca) of this aragonitic PDI shell and of post-PDI larval Crassostrea gigas shell, as well as the water they were reared in, over ∼20 days for a May and an August cohort in 2011, during which time there was no period of carbonate under-saturation. After testing various methods, we successfully isolated the shell from organic tissue using a 5% active chlorine bleach solution. Elemental compositions (Sr, Mg, C, N) of the shells post-treatment showed that shell Sr/Ca ranged from 1.55 to 1.82 mmol/mol; Mg/Ca from 0.60 to 1.11 mmol/mol, similar to the few comparable published data for larval oyster aragonite compositions. We compare these data in light of possible biomineralization mechanisms: an amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) path, an intercellular path, and a direct-from-seawater path to shell formation via biologically induced inorganic precipitation of aragonite. The last option provides a mechanistic explanation for: (1) the accelerated precipitation rates of biogenic calcification in the absence of a calcifying fluid; (2) consistently elevated precipitation rates at varying ambient-water saturation states; and (3) the high Ca-selectivity of the early larval calcification despite rapid precipitation rates. © 2018. American Geophysical Union.