ALBERT

Description: The storage concession "Minerbio Stoccaggio" (Bologna, Northern Italy) covers a 69 km 2 area, 65% of hich is located in the Minerbio municipality. Since 1979, a microseismic network for the monitoring of seismicity, eventually induced by gas storage activities, has been installed in this area. The network was operated by Stogit S.p.A, a subsidiary company of Snam, which is the largest storage operator in Italy. In 2016, the microseismic network, consisting of three surface stations and one 100-m-deep borehole sensor with minimum interstation distances of about 3.0 km, was integrated with 12 regional stations installed in an 80 × 80 km 2 area centered on the surface projection of the reservoir. In 2018, the microseismic network was enhanced by adding one surface and three 150-m-deep borehole stations. In this work, we evaluate the detection improvement of the microseismic network, integrated with the regional stations. We define two crustal volumes for earthquake detection: the inner domain of detection, IDD (10 × 10 × 5) km 3 , within which we should ensure the highest network performance, and the extended domain of detection, EDD (22 × 22 × 11) km 3 . By comparing the simulated power spectral density of hypothetical seismic sources located in EDD with the average power spectra of ambient seismic noise observed at each station site, we calculate detection and localization thresholds for the two above-mentioned networks. Under unfavourable noise conditions, we find that the present operative seismic network allows locating earthquakes with M L ≥ 0.8 occurring at the depth of the reservoir and with M L ≥ 1.0 if located within IDD.

Description: Funding information This study received financial support from BComune di Minerbio^ under the grant BSperimentazione ILG Minerbio^ (grant number 0913.010)

Description: Published

Description: 967–977

Description: 3SR TERREMOTI - Attività dei Centri

Description: JCR Journal

Description: This paper presents an original multidisciplinary (geological-structural-geomorphological and seismological) study aimed at investigating the origin of diffused seismic damages affecting several ancient buildings in the Roman port city of Ostia. We also evaluate the possibility to relate these damages to a previously hypothesized ENE-WSW trending fault, bordering the morphological height upon which the Ostia town was founded. Aimed at this scope, we performed seismic noise measures (by using 14 seismic stations) that show no significantly different response and lack of significant ground motion differential amplifications. The coexistence of (i) no local geological heterogeneities and (ii) low amplification of spectral ratios in the recorded seismic signals seems to exclude that the observed seismic damage may be the consequence of significant site effects. When also the large distance from the strongest Apennine’s seismogenic source areas is considered, the possibility that the observed damage may be the consequence of local events should be considered. We discuss the potentiality of the ENE-WSW trending fault as the source of the observed seismic damages, highlighting the supporting evidence as well as the uncertainties of such interpretation.

Description: Published

Description: 833–851

Description: 5T. Sismologia, geofisica e geologia per l'ingegneria sismica

Description: JCR Journal

Description: This work describes the analysis of the strong-motion data from the Engineering Strong Motion database (ESM, http://esm.mi.ingv.it), aimed at: (1) extract a dataset of accelero- metric waveforms recorded during the 2016–2017 Central Italy seismic sequence; (2) iden- tify the recording stations to be used as reference sites for further seismological analysis; (3) select the records to be used as input for seismic microzonation of higher level at 137 municipalities. Firstly, a residual analysis is carried out on the extracted dataset to perform: (1) the quality check of the waveforms recorded by temporary networks installed soon after the occurrence of the rst main shock (M 6.0, 24 August 2016); (2) the estimation of the site-to-site residual term for each recording station with the aim of recognising potential reference rock sites. Finally, the software REXELite, integrated within the ESM website, is adopted to select suites of spectrum-compatible accelerograms, that will be used as input for calculating site ampli cations through 1D and 2D simulations at sites which suf- fered the greatest damage. The results of this work demonstrate the success of the synergy among Italian institutions. The setup of key infrastructures, such as emergency networks and data repositories, together with the knowledge developed during national projects, turned out to be successful in terms of timely intervention during the emergency phase and the planning of the post-emergency.

Description: Published

Description: 5533–5551

Description: 5T. Sismologia, geofisica e geologia per l'ingegneria sismica

Description: JCR Journal

Description: Our knowledge on distribution, habitats and behavior of Southern Ocean fishes living at water depths beyond scuba-diving limits is still sparse, as it is difficult to obtain quantitative data on these aspects of their biology. Here, we report the results of an analysis of seabed images to investigate species composition, behavior, spatial distribution and preferred habitats of demersal fish assemblages in the southern Weddell Sea. Our study was based on a total of 2736 high-resolution images, covering a total seabed area of 11,317 m2, which were taken at 13 stations at water depths between 200 and 750 m. Fish were found in 380 images. A total of 379 notothenioid specimens were recorded, representing four families (Nototheniidae, Artedidraconidae, Bathydraconidae, Channichthyidae), 17 genera and 25 species. Nototheniidae was the most speciose fam- ily, including benthic species (Trematomus spp.) and the pelagic species Pleuragramma antarctica, which was occasionally recorded in dense shoals. Bathydraconids ranked second with six species, followed by artedidraconids and channichthyids, both with five species. Most abundant species were Trematomus scotti and T. lepidorhinus among nototheniids, and Dol- loidraco longedorsalis and Pagetopsis maculatus among artedidraconids and channichthyids, respectively. Both T. lepi- dorhinus and P. maculatus preferred seabed habitats characterized by biogenous debris and rich epibenthic fauna, whereas T. scotti and D. longedorsalis were frequently seen resting on fine sediments and scattered gravel. Several fish species were recorded to make use of the three-dimensional structure formed by epibenthic foundation species, like sponges, for perching or hiding inside. Nesting behavior was observed, frequently in association with dropstones, in species from various families, including Channichthyidae (Chaenodraco wilsoni and Pagetopsis macropterus) and Bathydraconidae (Cygnodraco mawsoni).

Description: A new 21.3m firn core was drilled in 2015 at a coastal Antarctic high-accumulation site in Adélie Land (66.78◦ S; 139.56◦ E, 602 m a.s.l.), named Terre Adélie 192A (TA192A). The mean isotopic values (−19.3 ‰ ± 3.1 ‰ for δ18O and 5.4 ‰±2.2 ‰ for deuterium excess) are consistent with other coastal Antarctic values. No significant isotope–temperature relationship can be evidenced at any timescale. This rules out a simple interpretation in terms of local temperature. An observed asymmetry in the δ18O seasonal cycle may be explained by the precipitation of air masses coming from the eastern and western sectors in autumn and winter, recorded in the d-excess signal showing outstanding values in austral spring versus autumn. Significant positive trends are observed in the annual d-excess record and local sea ice extent (135–145◦ E) over the period 1998–2014. However, process studies focusing on resulting isotopic compositions and particularly the deuterium excess–δ18O relationship, evidenced as a potential fingerprint of moisture origins, as well as the collection of more isotopic measurements in Adélie Land are needed for an accurate interpretation of our signals.

Description: Due to its year-round accessibility and excellent on-site infrastructure, Kongsfjorden and the Ny-Ålesund Research and Monitoring Facility have become established as a primary location to study the impact of environmental change on Arctic coastal ecosystems. Due to its location right at the interface of Arctic and Atlantic oceanic regimes, Kongsfjorden already experiences large amplitudes of variability in physico/chemical conditions and might, thus, be considered as an early warning indicator of future changes, which can then be extrapolated in a pan-Arctic perspective. Already now, Kongsfjorden represents one of the best-studied Arctic fjord systems. However, research conducted to date has concentrated largely on small disciplinary projects, prompting the need for a higher level of integration of future research activities. This contribution, thus, aims at identifying gaps in knowledge and research priorities with respect to ecological and adaptive responses to Arctic ecosystem changes. By doing so we aim to provide a stimulus for the initiation of new international and interdisciplinary research initiatives.

Description: To counteract global warming, a geoengineering approach that aims at intervening in the Arctic ice‐albedo feedback has been proposed. A large number of wind‐driven pumps shall spread seawater on the surface in winter to enhance ice growth, allowing more ice to survive the summer melt. We test this idea with a coupled climate model by modifying the surface exchange processes such that the physical effect of the pumps is simulated. Based on experiments with RCP 8.5 scenario forcing, we find that it is possible to keep the late‐summer sea ice cover at the current extent for the next ∼60 years. The increased ice extent is accompanied by significant Arctic late‐summer cooling by ∼1.3 K on average north of the polar circle (2021–2060). However, this cooling is not conveyed to lower latitudes. Moreover, the Arctic experiences substantial winter warming in regions with active pumps. The global annual‐mean near‐surface air temperature is reduced by only 0.02 K (2021–2060). Our results cast doubt on the potential of sea ice targeted geoengineering to mitigate climate change.

Description: The timing and intensity of snowmelt processes on sea ice are key drivers determining the seasonal sea-ice energy and mass budgets. In the Arctic, satellite passive microwave and radar observations have revealed a trend towards an earlier snowmelt onset during the last decades, which is an important aspect of Arctic amplification and sea ice decline. Around Antarctica, snowmelt on perennial ice is weak and very different than in the Arctic, with most snow surviving the summer. Here we compile time series of snowmelt-onset dates on seasonal and perennial Antarctic sea ice from 1992 to 2014/15 using active microwave observations from European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS-1/2), Quick Scatterometer (QSCAT) and Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) radar scatterometers. We define two snowmelt transition stages: A weak backscatter rise indicating the initial warming and destructive metamorphism of the snowpack (pre-melt), followed by a rapid backscatter rise indicating the onset of thaw-freeze cycles (snowmelt). Results show large interannual variability with an average pre-melt onset date of 29 November and melt onset of 10 December, respectively, on perennial ice, without any significant trends over the study period, consistent with the small trends of Antarctic sea ice extent. There was a latitudinal gradient from early snowmelt onsets in mid-November in the northern Weddell Sea to late (end-December) or even absent snowmelt conditions in the southern Weddell Sea. We show that QSCAT Ku-band (13.4 GHz signal frequency) derived pre-melt and snowmelt onset dates are earlier by 20 and 18 days, respectively, than ERS and ASCAT C-band (5.6 GHz) derived dates. This offset has been considered when constructing the time series. Snowmelt onset dates from passive microwave observations (37 GHz) are later by 14 and 6 days than those from the scatterometers, respectively. Based on these characteristic differences between melt onset dates observed by different microwave wavelengths, we developed a conceptual model which illustrates how the seasonal evolution of snow temperature profiles may affect different microwave bands with different penetration depths. These suggest that future multi-frequency active/passive microwave satellite missions could be used to resolve melt processes throughout the vertical snow column of thick snow on perennial Antarctic sea ice.

Description: During the last decade the Arctic has experienced increasing human development while many native communities continue to live a subsistence lifestyle. Off-road winter tundra travel for resource exploration is most cost effective and least environmentally damaging during winter when the tundra is frozen and snow covered. Climate warming, which is occurring at an amplified rate in the Arctic, likely changes the period when access to the off-road tundra travel is possible. There currently exists, however, large uncertainty as to how climate change will impact the low-cost winter travel access across the tundra. Here we defined safe tundra access when soil temperatures are below a soil type dependent freezing temperature and snow cover is at least 20 cm. Our analysis is based on the simulated soil temperatures and snow depths of Land Surface Models (LSMs) contributing to “The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project” (ISIMIP). ISIMIP simulations are based on a common protocol, the same input data, the same spatial (0.5°) and temporal resolution (daily modeling output), and span over the period 1861-2100. The LSMs are forced by four different bias-corrected global circulation models (IPSL-CM5A-LR, GFDL-ESM2M, MIROC5, HadGEM2-ES) and three different future conditions (represented via representative concentration pathways (RCP) 2.6, 6.0, 8.5). The simulation results of our model ensemble (60 model combinations) show consistent permafrost warming and changing snow cover patterns at 60°N. Annual off-road tundra travel is considerably reduced (〉50%) under future climate change scenarios, especially under the RCP8.5. The main reduction can be observed in the spring and autumn (〉30%). The results of the multi-model ensemble differ in magnitude, however, their overall trend is consistent. Our results suggest a high vulnerability and substantial changes to the (subsistence) livelihoods of native communities and increasing costs for off-road resource exploration.

Description: Although quantitative isotope data from speleothems has been used to evaluate isotope-enabled model simulations, currently no consensus exists regarding the most appropriate methodology through which to achieve this. A number of modelling groups will be running isotope-enabled palaeoclimate simulations in the framework of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6, so it is timely to evaluate different approaches to using the speleothem data for data–model comparisons. Here, we illustrate this using 456 globally distributed speleothem δ18O records from an updated version of the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and Analysis (SISAL) database and palaeoclimate simulations generated using the ECHAM5-wiso isotope-enabled atmospheric circulation model. We show that the SISAL records reproduce the first-order spatial patterns of isotopic variability in the modern day, strongly supporting the application of this dataset for evaluating model-derived isotope variability into the past. However, the discontinuous nature of many speleothem records complicates the process of procuring large numbers of records if data–model comparisons are made using the traditional approach of comparing anomalies between a control period and a given palaeoclimate experiment. To circumvent this issue, we illustrate techniques through which the absolute isotope values during any time period could be used for model evaluation. Specifically, we show that speleothem isotope records allow an assessment of a model’s ability to simulate spatial isotopic trends. Our analyses provide a protocol for using speleothem isotope data for model evaluation, including screening the observations to take into account the impact of speleothem mineralogy on δ18O values, the optimum period for the modern observational baseline and the selection of an appropriate time window for creating means of the isotope data for palaeo-time-slices.

Description: We present here the first results, for the preindustrial and mid-Holocene climatological periods, of the newly developed isotope-enhanced version of the fully coupled Earth system model MPI-ESM, called hereafter MPI-ESM-wiso. The water stable isotopes H16O, H18O and HDO have been implemented into all components of the coupled model setup. The mid-Holocene provides the opportunity to evaluate the model response to changes in the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of insolation induced by different orbital forcing conditions. The results of our equilibrium simulations allow us to evaluate the performance of the isotopic model in simulating the spatial and temporal variations of water isotopes in the different compartments of the hydrological system for warm climates. For the preindustrial climate, MPI-ESM-wiso reproduces very well the observed spatial distribution of the isotopic content in precipitation linked to the spatial variations in temperature and precipitation rate. We also find a good model–data agreement with the observed distribution of isotopic composition in surface seawater but a bias with the presence of surface seawater that is too 18O-depleted in the Arctic Ocean. All these results are improved compared to the previous model version ECHAM5/MPIOM. The spatial relationships of water isotopic composition with temperature, precipitation rate and salinity are consistent with observational data. For the preindustrial climate, the interannual relationships of water isotopes with temperature and salinity are globally lower than the spatial ones, consistent with previous studies. Simulated results under mid-Holocene conditions are in fair agreement with the isotopic measurements from ice cores and continental speleothems. MPI-ESM-wiso simulates a decrease in the isotopic composition of precipitation from North Africa to the Tibetan Plateau via India due to the enhanced monsoons during the mid-Holocene. Over Greenland, our simulation indicates a higher isotopic composition of precipitation linked to higher summer temperature and a reduction in sea ice, shown by positive isotope–temperature gradient. For the Antarctic continent, the model simulates lower isotopic values over the East Antarctic plateau, linked to the lower temperatures during the mid-Holocene period, while similar or higher isotopic values are modeled over the rest of the continent. While variations of isotopic contents in precipitation over West Antarctica between mid-Holocene and preindustrial periods are partly controlled by changes in temperature, the transport of relatively 18O-rich water vapor near the coast to the western ice core sites could play a role in the final isotopic composition. So, more caution has to be taken about the reconstruction of past temperature variations during warm periods over this area. The coupling of such a model with an ice sheet model or the use of a zoomed grid centered on this region could help to better describe the role of the water vapor transport and sea ice around West Antarctica. The reconstruction of past salinity through isotopic content in sea surface waters can be complicated for regions with strong ocean dynamics, variations in sea ice regimes or significant changes in freshwater budget, giving an extremely variable relationship between the isotopic content and salinity of ocean surface waters over small spatial scales. These complicating factors demonstrate the complexity of interpreting water isotopes as past climate signals of warm periods like the mid-Holocene. A systematic isotope model intercomparison study for further insights on the model dependency of these results would be beneficial.

Description: Climate change and sustainable use of natural capital demand increased collaboration across the sciences. The first steps for effective collaboration often focus on improving interoperability between observation and analyses methodologies. This is traditionally done through a combination of standards and best practices. The ocean observation community and observing infrastructures - with regionally diverse members working in physics, chemistry, biology and engineering - is looking toward a dynamic consensus-building approach to match the rapid pace of technological evolution. This is an essential part of the long-term cooperation among ocean observing infrastructures. In the last 12 months, the ocean observing community has implemented an Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS). This System was recently adopted by the Intergovernmental Ocean Commission as an international project under GOOS and IODE. The System consists of a permanent OBPS repository hosted by IODE with state-of-the-art semantic discovery and metadata indexing for improved access to best practices and, eventually, to the data associated with them. There have been discussions to understand how to deal with differing best practices and standards on the same observation or analyses objective and other issues that arise from a comprehensive ocean best practices system. A recent survey, to be described, offers options on alternative approaches. Further, we have created a forum, in “Frontiers in Marine Science” for discussion of best practices and their applications. This presentation will cover options for evolving and sustaining ocean best practices across infrastructures. The recommendations build upon the community survey, the OGC experience, the outcomes of the OceanObs’19 conference as well as inputs from the Decade for Ocean Sciences community meetings. The extension of this work to other communities will also be examined.

Description: IODP Exp. 383 recovered two Pleistocene sedimentary sequences from the upper continental slope along the southernmost Chilean margin that are well positioned to monitor changes in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) upstream of the Drake Passage and the history of Patagonian glaciation. These sites are characterized by high sedimentation rates and a complex distribution of siliciclastic sediments with infrequent decimeter-scale beds of calcareous biogenic sediments. Unravelling ocean circulation and climate history from these sites requires a primary understanding of sedimentary provenance and transport mechanisms derived from a complete lithological characterization of the sequence. Here, we integrate downcore shipboard physical properties with sedimentological observations to fully characterize the sequences, evaluate potential for correlation and constrain regional depositional processes. Site U1542 (52°S; 1101 m water depth) consists of a 249 m spliced sedimentary sequence containing Middle Pleistocene to Holocene sediments. It mainly consists of clayey silt that is often interbedded with thin (~75 cm) beds of calcareous sand-bearing clayey to sandy silt with foraminifera and nannofossils or foraminifera-rich nannofossil ooze. Site U1544 (55°S; 2090 m water depth) consists of a 98 m sedimentary sequence obtained from a single hole. Sediments are also dominated by silty clay, but exhibit slightly thicker beds of calcareous ooze and a significantly higher proportion of cm- to dm-scale sand beds that are interpreted as turbidites. Based on the lithology of the recovered sediments and proximity to a glaciated continental margin, terrigenous sediment is likely delivered to these locations by a combination of ice rafting, glacial meltwater plumes, episodic downslope transport from the outer continental shelf and fine-grained sediments transported by the Cape Horn Current entering the Drake Passage as the northern branch of the ACC.

Description: Modern Society needs interactive public discussion to provide an effective way of focusing on hydrological hazards and their consequences. Embracing a holistic Earth system Science approach, we experiment since 2004 different stimulating educational/communicative model which emotionally involves the participants to raise awareness on the social dimension of the disaster hydrogeological risk reduction, pointing out that human behavior is the crucial factor in the degree of vulnerability and the likelihood of disasters taking place. The implementation of strategies for risk mitigation must include educational aspects, as well as economical and societal ones. Education is the bridge between knowledge and understanding and the key to raise risk perception. Children’s involvement might trigger a chain reaction that reinforce and spread the culture of risk. No matter how heavy was the rain that hit our land in the past and recent seasons, we still are not prepared. If on one hand we need to fight against worsening Global Warming that trigger extreme meteorological events, we should also work on sustainable land use and promote landscape preservation. Since science can work on improving knowledge of phenomena, technology can provide modern tool to reduce the impact of disasters, children and adults education is the flywheel to provide the change. We present here two cases selected among the wide range of educational activities that we have tested and to which more than 2,000 students and adults have participated within a period of 12 years. They include learn-by-playing, hands-on, emotional-learning activities, open questions seminars, learning paths, curiosity-driven approaches, special venues and science outreach.

Description: Sendai Partnerships 2015-2025

Description: Published

Description: Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Description: 2TM. Divulgazione Scientifica

Description: The systematic study of biological basis of behavior and of the process involved in economical choices has outlined a new paradigm of research: neuroeconomics. Now the intersection between neuroscience, psychology and economics, neuroeconomics presents itself as an alternative to the neoclassical vision on economics, according to which the homo oeconomicus acts within the bonds of a formalizing rationality tending to the maximization of the anticipated utility. Brain imagining methods have shown that the decision-making processes activate the frontal lobe and the limbic system above all, a big circonvolution running through the callous body on the medial surface of the hemispheres, extending itself down, responsible for the regulation of emotional phenomena. Reinforcing such a tendency, we find the injury paradigm. It was observed that frontal lobe injuries harm the capacity of making advantageous decisions either in one’s own behalf or in others, as well as decisions according to the social conventions. In this paper, we will try to show that if, by the one hand, the neuro visual methods have given us a great amount of data, on the other hand, using them uncritically, with the recurrent confusion between “correlation” and “causal relation”—contemporary microevents indicate only simple correlations, and no cause-effect relation—risks to stress the relevant explanatory gap regarding the abstract ideal of understanding the nature of the brain.

Description: Published

Description: 135-141

Description: 2TM. Divulgazione Scientifica

Description: This paper investigates whether and how depressive disorders affect speech and in particular timing strategies for speech pauses (empty and filled pauses, as well as, phoneme lengthening). The investigation is made exploiting read and spontaneous narratives . The collected data are from 24 subjects, divided into two groups (depressed and control) asked to read a tale, as well as, spontaneously report on their daily activities. Ten different frequency and duration measures for pauses and clauses are proposed and have been collected using the PRAAT software on the speech recordings produced by the participants. A T-Student test for independent samples was applied on the collected frequency and duration measures in order to ascertain whether significant differences between healthy and depressed speech measures are observed. In the “spontaneous narrative” condition, depressed patients exhibited significant differences in: the average duration of their empty pauses, the average frequency, and the average duration of their clauses. In the read narratives, only the average pause’s frequency of the clauses was significantly lower in the depressed subjects with respect to the healthy ones. The results suggest that depressive disorders affect speech quality and speech production through pause and clause durations, as well as, clause quantities. In particular, the significant differences in clause quantities (observed both in the read and spontaneous narratives), suggest a strong general effect of depressive symptoms on cognitive and psychomotor functions. Depressive symptoms produce changes in the planned timing of pauses, even when reading, modifying the timing of pausing strategies.

Description: Published

Description: 73-82

Description: 5TM. Informazione ed editoria

Description: t The role of riverine freshwater inflow on the Central Mediterranean Overturning Circulation (CMOC) was studied using a high-resolution ocean model with a complete distribution of rivers in the Adriatic and Ionian catchment areas. The impact of river runoff on the Adriatic and Ionian Sea basins was assessed by a twin experiment, with and without runoff, from 1999 to 2012. This study tries to show the connection between the Adriatic as a marginal sea containing the downwelling branch of the anti-estuarine CMOC and the large runoff occurring there. It is found that the multiannual CMOC is a persistent anti-estuarine structure with secondary estuarine cells that strengthen in years of large realistic river runoff. The CMOC is demonstrated to be controlled by wind forcing at least as much as by buoyancy fluxes. It is found that river runoff affects the CMOC strength, enhancing the amplitude of the secondary estuarine cells and reducing the intensity of the dominant anti-estuarine cell. A large river runoff can produce a positive buoyancy flux without switching off the antiestuarine CMOC cell, but a particularly low heat flux and wind work with normal river runoff can reverse it. Overall by comparing experiments with, without and with unrealistically augmented runoff we demonstrate that rivers affect the CMOC strength but they can never represent its dominant forcing mechanism and the potential role of river runoff has to be considered jointly with wind work and heat flux, as they largely contribute to the energy budget of the basin. Looking at the downwelling branch of the CMOC in the Adriatic basin, rivers are demonstrated to locally reduce the volume of Adriatic dense water formed in the Southern Adriatic Sea as a result of increased water stratification. The spreading of the Adriatic dense water into the Ionian abyss is affected as well: dense waters overflowing the Otranto Strait are less dense in a realistic runoff regime, with respect to no runoff experiment, and confined to a narrower band against the Italian shelf with less lateral spreading toward the Ionian Sea center. 1

Description: Published

Description: 1675-1703

Description: 4A. Oceanografia e clima

Description: JCR Journal

Description: Humans have very high requirements and expectations when communicating through speech, other than simplicity, flexibility and easiness of interaction. This is because voice interactions do not require cognitive efforts, attention, and memory resources. Voice technologies are however still constrained to use cases and scenarios giving the existing limitations of speech synthesis and recognition systems. Which is the status of nonlinear speech processing techniques and the steps made for cross-fertilization among disciplines? This chapter will provide a short overview trying to answer the above question.

Description: Published

Description: 5-11

Description: 5TM. Informazione ed editoria

Description: Pore Pressure Pulse Drove the 2012 Emilia (Italy)Series of EarthquakesGiuseppe Pezzo1, Pasquale De Gori1, Francesco Pio Lucente1, and Claudio Chiarabba11Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, ItalyAbstractThe 2012 Emilia earthquakes sequence is thefirst debated case in Italy of destructive eventpossibly induced by anthropic activity. During this sequence, two main earthquakes occurred separated by9 days on contiguous thrust faults. Scientific commissions engaged by the Italian government reportedcomplementary scenarios on the potential trigger mechanism ascribable to exploitation of a nearby oilfield.In this study, we combine a refined geodetic source model constrained by precise aftershock locationsand an improved tomographic model of the area to define the geometrical relation between the activatedfaults and investigate possible triggering mechanisms. An aftershock decay rate that deviates from theclassical Omori-like pattern andVp/Vschanges along the fault system suggests that natural pore pressurepulse drove the space-time evolution of seismicity and the activation of the second main shock

Description: Published

Description: 682-690

Description: 4T. Sismicità dell'Italia

Description: JCR Journal

Description: Near-fault ground motion records often present impulsive signals, characterized by a largeamplitude in the velocity wavefield and by the energy concentrated in a short time window as comparedto the total earthquake duration. Thispulse-likebehavior is ascribed to the directivity of the seismic rupture,and it requires a stronger demand to the buildings not predicted by the classical design spectra. In this workwe investigate the pulse occurrence and duration in near-fault synthetic seismograms generated from anensemble ofk 2source models. We exploited the fault geometry of theMw= 6.3, 2009 L’Aquila earthquake,which represents a typical example of normal-fault earthquake for which several records in the fault vicinityare available for comparison with synthetics. We show that impulsive records are sensitive to the rupturevelocity, to the hypocenter depth, and to the station location, whether it is on the hanging wall or on thefootwall. The pulse duration was also shown to be proportional to the risetime, and it scales with thesource-receiver distance and inversely with the rupture velocity. We model these results as an effectof the coupled along-strike and updip directivity

Description: Published

Description: 7707-7721

Description: 6T. Studi di pericolosità sismica e da maremoto

Description: JCR Journal

Description: Since the past decade, geodetic techniques are widely used to gain important information for the monitoring and modeling of the deformation of the Earth at different length and time scales. Although the GNSS derived estimates of the Earth crust velocity are becoming more and more reliable, advanced data analysis techniques are needed to recognize geophysical features in the GNSS time-series, e.g., non linear behaviors, discontinuities in the signal and in its derivative, i.e., in the velocity. Unfortunately these phenomena are often hidden in the time-series noise and external information, as seismic events, are not always known. The main focus of this work is the detection of signal discontinuities in GNSS time-series through the use of advanced analysis techniques: the wavelets, the Bayesian and the variational methods. The Mumford and Shah (Commun Pure Appl Math 42:577–685, 1989) and the Blake and Zisserman (Visual reconstruction, 1987) variational models for signal segmentation can detect signal discontinuities in an explicitly way. The Blake and Zisserman (Visual reconstruction, 1987) model can also detect discontinuities of the signal first derivative, i.e., velocity abrupt changes can be detected. At first, to prove and assess the capability to detect discontinuities correctly, the methods have been applied to some Cascadia (North America) time-series, characterized by well known aseismic deformations. A second test area has been taken into account: the Calabrian Arc subduction zone, in southern Italy. The analyzed Italian GNSS time-series are characterized by very weak and noisy signals and the geodynamic of the area is mostly unknown. When present, discontinuities are expected to be very small and compatible with the signal noise. This motivates the use of advanced data analysis techniques to investigate the presence of discontinuities. At the moment, the analysis of the Italian time-series has revealed several discontinuities which nature cannot be labeled easily as geophysical or geodetic.

Description: Published

Description: 627-634

Description: 2T. Deformazione crostale attiva

Description: Algorithms based on artificial intelligence (AI) have had a strong development in recent years in different research fields of earth science such as seismology and volcanology. In particular, they have been applied to the study of the volcanic eruptive products of the recent activity of Mount Etna volcano. This work presents an application of the self-organizing map (SOM) neural networks to perform a clustering analysis on petrographic patterns of rocks of Somma–Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei volcanoes, in the Neapolitan area. The goal is to highlight possible affinity between the magmatic reservoirs of these two volcanic complexes. The SOM is known for its ability to cluster data by using intrinsic similarity measures without any previous information about their distribution. Moreover, it allows an easy understandable data visualization by using a two-dimensional map. The SOM has been tested on a geochemical dataset of 271 samples, consisting of 134 samples of Campi Flegrei eruptions (named CF), 24 samples of Somma–Vesuvius effusive eruptions (VF), 73 samples of Somma–Vesuvius explosive eruptions (VX), and finally 40 samples of “foreign” eruptions (ET), included to verify the neural net classification capability. After a pre-processing phase, applied to have a more appropriate data representation as input for the SOM, each sample has been encoded through a vector of 23 features, containing information about major bulk components, trace elements, and Sr isotopic ratio. The resulting SOM identifies three main clusters, and in particular, the foreign patterns (ET) are well separated from the other ones being mainly grouped in a single node. In conclusion, the obtained results suggest the ability of SOM neural network to associate volcanic rock suites on the basis of their geochemical imprint and can be consistent with the hypothesis that there might be a common magma source beneath the whole Neapolitan area.

Description: Published

Description: 55-60

Description: 3V. Proprietà chimico-fisiche dei magmi e dei prodotti vulcanici

Description: This paper investigates the ability of adolescents (aged 13–15 years) and young adults (aged 20–26 years) to decode affective bursts culturally situated in a different context (Francophone vs. South Italian). The effects of context show that Italian subjects perform poorly with respect to the Francophone ones revealing a significant native speaker advantage in decoding the selected affective bursts. In addition, adolescents perform better than young adults, particularly in the decoding and intensity ratings of affective bursts of happiness, pain, and pleasure suggesting an effect of age related to language expertise.

Description: Published

Description: 1TM. Formazione

Description: Many marine gastropods show species-specific behavioral responses to different predators, but less is known about the mechanisms influencing differences or similarities in specific responses. Herein, we examined whether two limpet species, Scurria viridula (Lamarck, 1819) and Fissurella latimarginata (Sowerby, 1835), show species- and size-specific similarities or differences in their reaction to predatory seastars and crabs. Both S. viridula and F. latimarginata reacted to their main seastar predators with escape responses. In contrast, both limpets did not flee from common crab predators, but, instead, fastened to the rock. All tested size classes of both limpet species reacted in a similar way, escaping from seastars, but clamping onto the rock in response to crabs. Limpets could reach velocities sufficient to outrun their specific seastar predators, but they were not fast enough to escape crabs. Experiments with limpets of different shell conditions (with and without shell damage) indicated that F. latimarginata with a damaged shell showed “accommodation movements” (slow movements away from stimulus) in response to predatory crabs. In contrast, intact F. latimarginata and all S. viridula (intact and damaged) clamped the shell down to the substratum. The response details suggest that the keyhole limpet F. latimarginata is more sensitive to predators (faster reaction time, longer escape distances, and higher proportion of reacting individuals) than S. viridula, possibly because the morphology of F. latimarginata (the relationship of its shell size and structure to its total body size) makes this species more vulnerable to predation. Our study suggests that chemically mediated effects of seastar and crab predators result in contrasting behavioral responses of both limpet species, independent of their habitat and morphology. Despite the different characteristics of the limpet species and the identity of predators, the limpets react in comparable ways to similar predator types.

Description: In this study, we present results obtained from modelling the mid-Pliocene warm period using the Community Earth System Models (COSMOS, version: COSMOS-landveg r2413, 2009) with the two different sets of boundary conditions prescribed for the two phases of the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP). Boundary conditions, model forcing, and modelling methodology of the two phases of PlioMIP, tagged PlioMIP1 and PlioMIP2,differ considerably in palaeogeography, in particular with regards to the state of ocean gateways, ice-masks, vegetation and topography. Further differences between model setups as suggested for PlioMIP1 and PlioMIP2 consider updates to the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), that is specified as 405 and 400 parts per million by volume (ppmv) for PlioMIP1 and PlioMIP2, respectively, as well as minor differences in the concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) due to changes in the protocol of the Paleoclimate Model Intercomparison Project (PMIP) from phase 3 to phase 4. With this manuscript, we bridge the gap between our contributions to PlioMIP1 (Stepanek and Lohmann, 2012) and PlioMIP2 (Stepanek et al., 2019). We highlight some of the effects that differences in the chosen Mid-Pliocene model setup (PlioMIP2 vs. PlioMIP1) have on the climate state as derived with the COSMOS, as this information will be valuable in the framework of the model-model and model-data-comparison within PlioMIP2. We evaluate the model sensitivity to improved mid-Pliocene boundary conditions using PlioMIP’s core mid-Pliocene experiments for PlioMIP1 and PlioMIP2, and present further simulations where we test model sensitivity to variations in palaeogeography, orbit and concentration of CO2. Firstly,we highlight major changes in boundary conditions from PlioMIP1 to PlioMIP2 and also the limitations recorded from the initial effort. The results derived from of our simulations show that COSMOS simulates a mid-Pliocene climate state that is 0.08 K colder in PlioMIP2, if compared to PlioMIP1. On one hand, high-latitude warming,which is supported by proxy evidence of the mid-Pliocene, is underestimated in simulations of both PlioMIP1 andPlioMIP2. On the other hand, spatial variations in surface air temperature (SAT), sea surface temperature (SST) as well as the distribution of sea ice suggest improvement of simulated SAT and SST in PlioMIP2 if employing the updated palaeogeography. The PlioMIP2 Mid-Pliocene simulation produces warmer SSTs in the Arctic and North Atlantic Ocean than derived from the respective PlioMIP1 climate state. The difference in prescribed CO2accountsfor 1.1 K of warming in the Arctic, leading to an ice-free summer in the PlioMIP1 simulation, and a quasi-ice-free summer in PlioMIP2. Furthermore, employing different orbital forcings in simulating the Mid-Pliocene lead to pronounced annual and seasonal variations, which is not accounted for by marine and terrestrial reconstruction of the time-slice.

Description: The Antarctic temperature changes over the past millennia remain more uncertain than in many other continental regions. This has several origins: (1) the number of high-resolution ice cores is small, in particular on the East Antarctic plateau and in some coastal areas in East Antarctica; (2) the short and spatially sparse instrumental records limit the calibration period for reconstructions and the assessment of the methodologies; (3) the link between isotope records from ice cores and local climate is usually complex and dependent on the spatial scales and timescales investigated. Here, we use climate model results, pseudo-proxy experiments and data assimilation experiments to assess the potential for reconstructing the Antarctic temperature over the last 2 millennia based on a new database of stable oxygen isotopes in ice cores compiled in the frame- work of Antarctica2k (Stenni et al., 2017). The well-known covariance between δ18O and temperature is reproduced in the two isotope-enabled models used (ECHAM5/MPI-OM and ECHAM5-wiso), but is generally weak over the different Antarctic regions, limiting the skill of the reconstructions. Furthermore, the strength of the link displays large variations over the past millennium, further affecting the potential skill of temperature reconstructions based on statistical methods which rely on the assumption that the last decades are a good estimate for longer temperature reconstructions. Using a data assimilation technique allows, in theory, for changes in the δ18O–temperature link through time and space to be taken into account. Pseudoproxy experiments confirm the benefits of using data assimilation methods instead of statistical methods that provide reconstructions with unrealistic variances in some Antarctic subregions. They also confirm that the relatively weak link between both variables leads to a limited potential for reconstructing temperature based on δ18O. However, the reconstruction skill is higher and more uniform among reconstruction methods when the reconstruction target is the Antarctic as a whole rather than smaller Antarctic subregions. This consistency between the methods at the large scale is also observed when reconstructing temperature based on the real δ18O regional composites of Stenni et al. (2017). In this case, temperature reconstructions based on data assimilation confirm the long-term cooling over Antarctica during the last millennium, and the later onset of anthropogenic warming compared with the simulations without data assimilation, which is especially visible in West Antarctica. Data assimilation also allows for models and direct observations to be reconciled by reproducing the east–west contrast in the recent temperature trends. This recent warming pattern is likely mostly driven by internal variability given the large spread of individual Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP)/Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) model realizations in simulating it. As in the pseudoproxy framework, the reconstruction methods perform differently at the subregional scale, especially in terms of the variance of the time series produced. While the potential benefits of using a data assimilation method instead of a statistical method have been highlighted in a pseudoproxy framework, the instrumental series are too short to confirm this in a realistic setup.

Description: Deciduous larch is a weak competitor when growing in mixed stands with evergreen taxa but is dominant in many boreal forest areas of Eastern Siberia. However, it is hypothesized that certain factors such as a shallow active layer thickness and high fire frequency favor larch dominance. Our aim is to understand how thermohydrological interactions between vegetation, permafrost, and atmosphere stabilize the larch forests and the underlying permafrost in Eastern Siberia. A tailored version of a one-dimensional land surface model (CryoGrid) is adapted for the application in vegetated areas and used to reproduce the energy transfer and thermal regime of permafrost ground in typical boreal larch stands. In order to simulate the responds of Arctic trees to local climate and permafrost conditions we have implemented a multilayer canopy parameterization originally developed for the Community Land Model (CLM-ml_v0). The coupled model is capable of calculating the full energy balance above, within and below the canopy including the radiation budget, the turbulent fluxes and the heat budget of the permafrost ground under several forcing scenarios. We will present first results of simulations performed for different study sites in larch-dominated forests of Eastern Siberia and Mongolia under current and future climate conditions. Model performance is thoroughly evaluated based on comprehensive in-situ soil temperature and radiation measurements at our study sites.

Description: Ice-wedge polygons are common features of lowland tundra in the continuous permafrost zone and prone to rapid degradation through melting of ground ice. There are many interrelated processes involved in ice-wedge thermokarst and it is a major challenge to quantify their influence on the stability of the permafrost underlying the landscape. In this study we used a numerical modelling approach to investigate the degradation of ice wedges with a focus on the influence of hydrological conditions. Our study area was Samoylov Island in the Lena River delta of northern Siberia, for which we had in situ measurements to evaluate the model. The tailored version of the CryoGrid 3 land surface model was capable of simulating the changing microtopography of polygonal tundra and also regarded lateral fluxes of heat, water, and snow. We demonstrated that the approach is capable of simulating ice-wedge degradation and the associated transition from a low-centred to a high-centred polygonal microtopography. The model simulations showed ice-wedge degradation under recent climatic conditions of the study area, irrespective of hydrological conditions. However, we found that wetter conditions lead to an earlier onset of degradation and cause more rapid ground subsidence. We set our findings in correspondence to observed types of ice-wedge polygons in the study area and hypothesized on remaining discrepancies between modelled and observed ice-wedge thermokarst activity. Our quantitative approach provides a valuable complement to previous, more qualitative and conceptual, descriptions of the possible pathways of ice-wedge polygon evolution. We concluded that our study is a blueprint for investigating thermokarst landforms and marks a step forward in understanding the complex interrelationships between various processes shaping ice-rich permafrost landscapes.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Noble gases in deepwater oils of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems , 19, 4218 – 4235.(2018): doi:10.1029/2018GC007654.

Description: Hydrocarbon migration and emplacement processes remain underconstrained despite the vast potential economic value associated with oil and gas. Noble gases provide information about hydrocarbon generation, fluid migration pathways, reservoir conditions, and the relative volumes of oil versus water in the subsurface. Produced gas He-Ne-Ar-Kr-Xe data from two distinct oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico (Genesis and Hoover-Diana) are used to calibrate a model that takes into account both water-oil solubility exchange and subsequent gas cap formation. Reconstructed noble gas signatures in oils reflect simple (two-phase) oil-water exchange imparted during migration from the source rock to the trap, which are subsequently modified by gas cap formation at current reservoir conditions. Calculated, oil to water volume ratios (Vo/Vw) in Tertiary-sourced oils from the Hoover-Diana system are 2–3 times greater on average than those in the Jurassic sourced oils from the Genesis reservoirs. Higher Vo/Vw in Hoover-Diana versus Genesis can be interpreted in two ways: either (1) the Hoover reservoir interval has 2–3 times more oil than any of the individual Genesis reservoirs, which is consistent with independent estimates of oil in place for the respective reservoirs, or (2) Genesis oils have experienced longer migration pathways than Hoover-Diana oils and thus have interacted with more water. The ability to determine a robust Vo/Vw , despite gas cap formation and possible gas cap loss, is extremely powerful. For example, when volumetric hydrocarbon ratios are combined with independent estimates of hydrocarbon migration distance and/or formation fluid volumes, this technique has the potential to differentiate between large and small oil accumulations.

Description: We thank ExxonMobil for funding and providing the samples. In addition, we thank James Scott and two anonymous reviewers for their comprehensive and constructive reviews, as well as Janne Blichert-Toft for editorial handling.

Description: 2019-04-10

Description: Warming of the Arctic led to an increase in permafrost temperatures by about 0.3 �C during the last decade. Permafrost warming is associated with increasing sediment water content, permeability, and diffusivity and could in the long term alter microbial community composition and abundance even before permafrost thaws. We studied the long-term effect (up to 2500 years) of submarine permafrost warming on microbial communities along an onshore–offshore transect on the Siberian Arctic Shelf displaying a natural temperature gradient of more than 10 �C. We analysed the in situ development of bacterial abundance and community composition through total cell counts (TCCs), quantitative PCR of bacterial gene abundance, and amplicon sequencing and correlated the microbial community data with temperature, pore water chemistry, and sediment physicochemical parameters. On timescales of centuries, permafrost warming coincided with an overall decreasing microbial abundance, whereas millennia after warming microbial abundance was similar to cold onshore permafrost. In addition, the dissolved organic carbon content of all cores was lowest in submarine permafrost after millennial-scale warming. Based on correlation analysis, TCC, unlike bacterial gene abundance, showed a significant rank-based negative correlation with increasing temperature, while bacterial gene copy numbers showed a strong negative correlation with salinity. Bacterial community composition correlated only weakly with temperature but strongly with the pore water stable isotopes �18O and �D, as well as with depth. The bacterial community showed substantial spatial variation and an overall dominance of Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, Gemmatimonadetes, and Proteobacteria, which are amongst the microbial taxa that were also found to be active in other frozen permafrost environments. We suggest that, millennia after permafrost warming by over 10 �C, microbial community composition and abundance show some indications for proliferation but mainly reflect the sedimentation history and paleoenvironment and not a direct effect through warming.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 123(12), (2018): 8674-8687, doi:10.1002/2018JC013766.

Description: A large collaborative program has studied the coupled air‐ice‐ocean‐wave processes occurring in the Arctic during the autumn ice advance. The program included a field campaign in the western Arctic during the autumn of 2015, with in situ data collection and both aerial and satellite remote sensing. Many of the analyses have focused on using and improving forecast models. Summarizing and synthesizing the results from a series of separate papers, the overall view is of an Arctic shifting to a more seasonal system. The dramatic increase in open water extent and duration in the autumn means that large surface waves and significant surface heat fluxes are now common. When refreezing finally does occur, it is a highly variable process in space and time. Wind and wave events drive episodic advances and retreats of the ice edge, with associated variations in sea ice formation types (e.g., pancakes, nilas). This variability becomes imprinted on the winter ice cover, which in turn affects the melt season the following year.

Description: This program was supported by the Office of Naval Research, Code 32, under Program Managers Scott Harper and Martin Jeffries. The crew of R/V Sikuliaq provide outstanding support in collecting the field data, and the US National Ice Center, German Aerospace Center (DLR), and European Space Agency facilitated the remote sensing collections and daily analysis products. RADARSAT‐2 Data and Products are from MacDonald, Dettwiler, and Associates Ltd., courtesy of the U.S. National Ice Center. Data, supporting information, and a cruise report can be found at http://www.apl.uw.edu/arcticseastate

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 123(12), (2018): 8887-8901, doi:10.1029/2018JC013797.

Description: Sea ice is one of the determining parameters of the climate system. The presence of melt ponds on the surface of Arctic sea ice plays a critical role in the mass balance of sea ice. A total of nine cores was collected from multiyear ice refrozen melt ponds and adjacent hummocks during the 2015 Arctic Sea State research cruise. The depth profiles of water isotopes, salinity, and ice texture for these sea ice cores were examined to provide information about the development of refrozen melt ponds and water balance generation processes, which are otherwise difficult to acquire. The presence of meteoric water with low oxygen isotope values as relatively thin layers indicates melt pond water stability and little mixing during formation and refreezing. The hydrochemical characteristics of refrozen melt pond and seawater depth profiles indicate little snowmelt enters the upper ocean during melt pond refreezing. Due to the seasonal characters of deuterium excess for Arctic precipitation, water balance calculations utilizing two isotopic tracers (oxygen isotope and deuterium excess) suggest that besides the melt of snow cover, the precipitation input in the melt season may also play a role in the evolution of melt ponds. The dual‐isotope mixing model developed here may become more valuable in a future scenario of increasing Arctic precipitation. The layers of meteoric origin were found at different depths in the refrozen melt pond ice cores. Surface topography information collected at several core sites was examined for possible explanations of different structures of refrozen melt ponds.

Description: The coauthors (S. F. A., S. S., T. M., and B. W.) wish to thank the other DRI participants and the Captain and crew of the Sikuliaq's October 2015 cruise for their assistance in the sample collections analyzed in the paper. Jim Thomson (Chief Scientist), Scott Harper (ONR Program Manager), and Martin Jeffries (ONR Program Manager) are particularly acknowledged for their unwavering assistance and leadership during the 5 years of the SeaState DRI. We thank Guy Williams for production of the aerial photo mosaic. Funding from the Office of Naval Research N00014‐13‐1‐0435 (S. F. A. and B. W.), N00014‐13‐1‐0434 (S. S.), and N00014‐13‐1‐0446 (T. M.) supported this research through grants to UTSA, UColorado, and WHOI, respectively. This project was also funded (in part) by the University of Texas at San Antonio, Office of the Vice President for Research (Y. G. and S. F. A.). Data for the stable isotope mixing models used in this study are shown in supporting information Tables S1–S3.

Description: 2019-05-15

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Freymond, C. V., Lupker, M., Peterse, F., Haghipour, N., Wacker, L., Filip, F., et al. (2018). Constraining instantaneous fluxes and integrated compositions of fluvially discharged organic matter. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 19, 2453 2462. doi: 10.1029/2018GC007539.

Description: Fluvial export of organic carbon (OC) and burial in ocean sediments comprises an important carbon sink, but fluxes remain poorly constrained, particularly for specific organic components. Here OC and lipid biomarker contents and isotopic characteristics of suspended matter determined in depth profiles across an active channel close to the terminus of the Danube River are used to constrain instantaneous OC and biomarker fluxes and integrated compositions during high to moderate discharges. During high (moderate) discharge, the total Danube exports 8 (7) kg/s OC, 7 (3) g/s higher plant‐derived long‐chain fatty acids (LCFA), 34 (21) g/s short‐chain fatty acids (SCFA), and 0.5 (0.2) g/s soil bacterial membrane lipids (brGDGTs). Integrated stable carbon isotopic compositions were TOC: −28.0 (−27.6)‰, LCFA: −33.5 (−32.8)‰ and Δ14C TOC: −129 (−38)‰, LCFA: −134 (−143)‰, respectively. Such estimates will aid in establishing quantitative links between production, export, and burial of OC from the terrestrial biosphere.

Description: This project was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNF. Grant Number: 200021_140850. F.P. acknowledges funding from NWO‐VENI grant 863.13.016. We thank the sampling crews from both field campaigns (Björn Buggle, James Saenz, Alissa Zuijdgeest, Marilu Tavagna, Stefan Eugen Filip, Silvia Lavinia Filip, Mihai, Clayton Magill, Thomas Blattmann, and Michael Albani), Daniel Montluçon for lab support and Hannah Gies for PCGC work. Figures, tables, and equations can be found in supporting information.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, 123(11), (2018): 7877-7895. doi: 10.1029/2018JC014290.

Description: A three‐dimensional, primitive‐equation, ocean circulation model coupled with a Lagrangian particle‐tracking algorithm is used to investigate the dispersal and settlement of planktonic larvae released from discrete hydrothermal habitats on the East Pacific Rise segment at 9–10°N. Model outputs show that mean circulation is anticyclonic around the ridge segment, which consists of a northward flow along the western flank and a southward flow along the eastern flank. Those flank jets are dispersal expressways for the along‐ridge larval transport and strongly affect its overall direction and spatial‐temporal variations. It is evident from model results that the transform faults bounding the ridge segment and off axis topography (the Lamont Seamount Chain) act as topographic barriers to larval dispersal in the along‐ridge direction. Furthermore, the presence of an overlapping spreading center and an adjacent local topographic high impedes the southward along‐ridge larval transport. The model results suggest that larval recolonization within ridge‐crest habitats is enhanced by the anticyclonic circulation around the ridge segment, and the overall recolonization rate is higher for larvae having a short precompetency period and an altitude above the bottom sufficient to avoid influence by the near‐bottom currents Surprisingly, for larvae having a long precompetency period (〉10 days), the prolonged travel time allowed some of those larvae to return to their natal vent clusters, which results in an unexpected increase in connectivity among natal and neighboring sites. Overall, model‐based predictions of connectivity are highly sensitive to the larval precompetency period and vertical position in the water column.

Description: The sediment‐trap data presented in this paper are included in Table S1. The bathymetric data used in the model can be downloaded from the Global Multi‐Resolution Topography (GMRT) Synthesis of Marine Geoscience Data System (MGDS) (https://www.gmrt.org/GMRTMapTool). The ocean current time series data used in this work were acquired in 2006‐2007 by Andreas Thurnherr at the Earth Institute of Columbia University. Those data can be accessed in the supporting information. D.J. McGillicuddy gratefully acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation and the Holger W. Jannasch and Columbus O'Donnell Iselin Shared Chairs for Excellence in Oceanography. L.S. Mullineaux acknowledges with gratitude support from the National Science Foundation and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Ocean life fellowship. We appreciate the operation support from the Captain and crew of R/V Atlantis and the Alvin submersible group. We are thankful to V.K. Kosnyrev for developing the coupling interface between the ocean‐circulation and particle‐tracking models. We are grateful to J.W. Lavelle for his intellectual support for the modeling work presented in this paper. We thank Houshuo Jiang for sponsoring our use of the cluster computer at WHOI.

Description: 2019-05-06

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, 123(11), (2018): 7983-8003. doi:10.1029/2018JC014298.

Description: A melt pond (MP) distribution equation has been developed and incorporated into the Marginal Ice‐Zone Modeling and Assimilation System to simulate Arctic MPs and sea ice over 1979–2016. The equation differs from previous MP models and yet benefits from previous studies for MP parameterizations as well as a range of observations for model calibration. Model results show higher magnitude of MP volume per unit ice area and area fraction in most of the Canada Basin and the East Siberian Sea and lower magnitude in the central Arctic. This is consistent with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer observations, evaluated with Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis (MEDEA) data, and closely related to top ice melt per unit ice area. The model simulates a decrease in the total Arctic sea ice volume and area, owing to a strong increase in bottom and lateral ice melt. The sea ice decline leads to a strong decrease in the total MP volume and area. However, the Arctic‐averaged MP volume per unit ice area and area fraction show weak, statistically insignificant downward trends, which is linked to the fact that MP water drainage per unit ice area is increasing. It is also linked to the fact that MP volume and area decrease relatively faster than ice area. This suggests that overall the actual MP conditions on ice have changed little in the past decades as the ice cover is retreating in response to Arctic warming, thus consistent with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer observations that show no clear trend in MP area fraction over 2000–2011.

Description: We gratefully acknowledge the support of the NASA Cryosphere Program (grants NNX15AG68G, NNX17AD27G, and NNX14AH61G), the Office of Naval Research (N00014‐12‐1‐0112), the NSF Office of Polar Programs (PLR‐1416920, PLR‐1603259, PLR‐1602521, and ARC‐1203425), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS, 2014‐ST‐061‐ML‐0002). The DHS grant is coordinated through the Arctic Domain Awareness Center (ADAC), a DHS Center of Excellence, which conducts maritime research and development for the Arctic region. The views and conclusions in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the DHS. MODIS‐derived MP area data are available at https://icdc.cen.uni‐hamburg.de/1/daten/cryosphere/arctic‐meltponds.html. MP area fraction statistics derived from MEDEA images are available from http://psc.apl.uw.edu/melt‐pond‐data/. Sea ice thickness and snow observations are available at http://psc.apl.washington.edu/sea_ice_cdr. CFS forcing data used to drive MIZMAS are available at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data‐access/model‐data/model‐datasets/climate‐forecast‐system‐version2‐cfsv2.

Description: 2019-04-18

Description: The Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP) is a synthesis effort providing regular compilations of surface to bottom ocean biogeochemical data, with an emphasis on seawater inorganic carbon chemistry and related variables determined through chemical analysis of water samples. This update of GLODAPv2, v2.2019, adds data from 116 cruises to the previous version, extending its coverage in time from 2013 to 2017, while also adding some data from prior years. GLODAPv2.2019 includes measurements from more than 1.1 million water samples from the global oceans collected on 840 cruises. The data for the 12 GLODAP core variables (salinity, oxygen, nitrate, silicate, phosphate, dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity, pH, CFC-11, CFC-12, CFC-113, and CCl4) have undergone extensive quality control, especially systematic evaluation of bias. The data are available in two formats: (i) as submitted by the data originator but updated to WOCE exchange format and (ii) as a merged data product with adjustments applied to minimize bias. These adjustments were derived by comparing the data from the 116 new cruises with the data from the 724 quality-controlled cruises of the GLODAPv2 data product. They correct for errors related to measurement, calibration, and data handling practices, taking into account any known or likely time trends or variations. The compiled and adjusted data product is believed to be consistent to better than 0.005 in salinity, 1 % in oxygen, 2 % in nitrate, 2 % in silicate, 2 % in phosphate, 4 µmol kg−1 in dissolved inorganic carbon, 4 µmol kg−1 in total alkalinity, 0.01–0.02 in pH, and 5 % in the halogenated transient tracers. The compilation also includes data for several other variables, such as isotopic tracers. These were not subjected to bias comparison or adjustments. The original data, their documentation and DOI codes are available in the Ocean Carbon Data System of NOAA NCEI (https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/ocads/oceans/GLODAPv2_2019/, last access: 17 September 2019). This site also provides access to the merged data product, which is provided as a single global file and as four regional ones – the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans – under https://doi.org/10.25921/xnme-wr20 (Olsen et al., 2019). The product files also include significant ancillary and approximated data. These were obtained by interpolation of, or calculation from, measured data. This paper documents the GLODAPv2.2019 methods and provides a broad overview of the secondary quality control procedures and results.

Description: We present a Lagrangian convective transport scheme developed for global chemistry and transport models, which considers the variable residence time that an air parcel spends in convection. This is particularly important for accurately simulating the tropospheric chemistry of short-lived species, e.g., for determining the time available for heterogeneous chemical processes on the surface of cloud droplets. In current Lagrangian convective transport schemes air parcels are stochastically redistributed within a fixed time step according to estimated probabilities for convective entrainment as well as the altitude of detrainment. We introduce a new scheme that extends this approach by modeling the variable time that an air parcel spends in convection by estimating vertical updraft velocities. Vertical updraft velocities are obtained by combining convective mass fluxes from meteorological analysis data with a parameterization of convective area fraction profiles. We implement two different parameterizations: a parameterization using an observed constant convective area fraction profile and a parameterization that uses randomly drawn profiles to allow for variability. Our scheme is driven by convective mass fluxes and detrainment rates that originate from an external convective parameterization, which can be obtained from meteorological analysis data or from general circulation models. We study the effect of allowing for a variable time that an air parcel spends in convection by performing simulations in which our scheme is implemented into the trajectory module of the ATLAS chemistry and transport model and is driven by the ECMWF ERA-Interim reanalysis data. In particular, we show that the redistribution of air parcels in our scheme conserves the vertical mass distribution and that the scheme is able to reproduce the convective mass fluxes and detrainment rates of ERA-Interim. We further show that the estimated vertical updraft velocities of our scheme are able to reproduce wind profiler measurements performed in Darwin, Australia, for velocities larger than 0.6 m s−1. SO2 is used as an example to show that there is a significant effect on species mixing ratios when modeling the time spent in convective updrafts compared to a redistribution of air parcels in a fixed time step. Furthermore, we perform long-time global trajectory simulations of radon-222 and compare with aircraft measurements of radon activity.

Description: Knowledge on basic biological functions of organisms is essential to understand not only the role they play in the ecosystems but also to manage and protect their populations. The study of biological processes, such as growth, reproduction and physiology, which can be approached in situ or by collecting specimens and rearing them in aquaria, is particularly challenging for deep-sea organisms like cold-water corals. Field experimental work and monitoring of deep-sea populations is still a chimera. Only a handful of research institutes or companies has been able to install in situ marine observatories in the Mediterranean Sea or elsewhere, which facilitate a continuous monitoring of deep-sea ecosystems. Hence, today’s best way to obtain basic biological information on these organisms is (1) working with collected samples and analysing them post-mortem and / or (2) cultivating corals in aquaria in order to monitor biological processes and investigate coral behaviour and physiological responses under different experimental treatments. The first challenging aspect is the collection process, which implies the use of oceanographic research vessels in most occasions since these organisms inhabit areas between ca. 150 m to more than 1000 m depth, and specific sampling gears. The next challenge is the maintenance of the animals on board (in situations where cruises may take weeks) and their transport to home laboratories. Maintenance in the home laboratories is also extremely challenging since special conditions and set-ups are needed to conduct experimental studies to obtain information on the biological processes of these animals. The complexity of the natural environment from which the corals were collected cannot be exactly replicated within the laboratory setting; a fact which has led some researchers to question the validity of work and conclusions drawn from such undertakings. It is evident that aquaria experiments cannot perfectly reflect the real environmental and trophic conditions where these organisms occur, but: (1) in most cases we do not have the possibility to obtain equivalent in situ information and (2) even with limitations, they produce relevant information about the biological limits of the species, which is especially valuable when considering potential future climate change scenarios. This chapter includes many contributions from different authors and is envisioned as both to be a practical “handbook” for conducting cold-water coral aquaria work, whilst at the same time offering an overview on the cold-water coral research conducted in Mediterranean laboratories equipped with aquaria infrastructure. Experiences from Atlantic and Pacific laboratories with extensive experience with cold-water coral work have also contributed to this chapter, as their procedures are valuable to any researcher interested in conducting experimental work with cold-water corals in aquaria. It was impossible to include contributions from all laboratories in the world currently working experimentally with cold-water corals in the laboratory, but at the conclusion of the chapter we attempt, to our best of our knowledge, to supply a list of several laboratories with operational cold-water coral aquaria facilities.

Description: The paper presents the results of 5 case studies on complex site e ects selected within the project for the level 3 seismic microzonation of several municipalities of Central Italy dam- aged by the 2016 seismic sequence. The case studies are characterized by di erent geo- logical and morphological con gurations: Monte San Martino is located along a hill slope, Montedinove and Arquata del Tronto villages are located at ridge top whereas Capitignano and Norcia lie in correspondence of sediment- lled valleys. Peculiarities of the sites are constituted by the presence of weathered/jointed rock mass, fault zone, shear wave veloc- ity inversion, complex surface and buried morphologies. These factors make the de ni- tion of the subsoil model and the evaluation of the local response particularly complex and di cult to ascertain. For each site, after the discussion of the subsoil model, the results of site response numerical analyses are presented in terms of ampli cation factors and acceleration response spectra in selected points. The physical phenomena governing the site response have also been investigated at each site by comparing 1D and 2D numerical analyses. Implications are deduced for seismic microzonation studies in similar geological and morphological conditions.

Description: Published

Description: 5741–5777

Description: 5T. Sismologia, geofisica e geologia per l'ingegneria sismica

Description: JCR Journal

Description: This paper describes the seismological analyses performed within the framework of the seismic microzonation study for the reconstruction of 138 municipalities damaged by the 2016–2017 sequence in Central Italy. Many waveforms were recorded over approximately 15 years at approximately 180 instrumented sites equipped with permanent or temporary stations in an area that includes all the damaged localities. Site response was assessed using earthquake and noise recordings at the selected stations through different parameters, such as spectral amplification curves, fundamental resonance frequencies, site-specific response spectra, and average amplification factors. The present study was a collaboration of many different institutions under the coordination of the Italian Center for Seismic Microzonation and its applications. The results were homogenized and gathered into site-specific forms, which represent the main deliverable for the benefit of Italian Civil Protection. It is remarkable that the bulk of this study was performed in a very short period (approximately 2 months) to provide quantitative information for detailed microzonation and future reconstruction of the damaged municipalities.

Description: Published

Description: 5553–5593

Description: 5T. Sismologia, geofisica e geologia per l'ingegneria sismica

Description: JCR Journal

Description: Holocene permafrost from ice wedge polygons in the vicinity of large seabird breeding colonies in the Thule District, NW Greenland, was drilled to explore the relation between permafrost aggradation and seabird presence. The latter is reliant on the presence of the North Water Polynya (NOW) in the northern Baffin Bay. The onset of peat accumulation associated with the arrival of little auks (Alle alle) in a breeding colony at Annikitisoq, north of Cape York, is radiocarbon-dated to 4400 cal BP. A thick-billed murre (Uria lomvia) colony on Appat (Saunders Island) in the mouth of the Wolstenholme Fjord started 5650 cal BP. Both species provide marine-derived nutrients (MDNs) that fertilize vegetation and promote peat growth. The geochemical signature of organic matter left by the birds is traceable in the frozen Holocene peat. The peat accumulation rates at both sites are highest after the onset, decrease over time, and were about 2-times faster at the little auk site than at the thick-billed murre site. High accumulation rates induce shorter periods of organic matter (OM) decomposition before it enters the perennially frozen state. This is seen in comparably high C=N ratios and less depleted 13C, pointing to a lower degree of OM decomposition at the little auk site, while the opposite pattern can be discerned at the thick-billed murre site. Peat accumulation rates correspond to 15N trends, where decreasing accumulation led to increasing depletion in 15N as seen in the little-auk-related data. In contrast, the more decomposed OM of the thick-billed murre site shows almost stable 15N. Late Holocene wedge ice fed by cold season precipitation was studied at the little auk site and provides the first stable-water isotopic record from Greenland with mean 18O of 8:00:8, mean D of 36:25:7, mean d excess of 7:70:7, and a 18O-D slope of 7.27, which is close to those of the modern Thule meteoric water line. The syngenetic ice wedge polygon development is mirrored in testacean records of the little auk site and delineates polygon low-center, dry-out, and polygon-high-center stages. The syngenetic permafrost formation directly depending on peat growth (controlled by bird activity) falls within the period of neoglacial cooling and the establishment of the NOW, thus indirectly following the Holocene climate trends.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 46(3), (2019):1702-1708. doi:10.1029/2018GL081087.

Description: After leaving the U.S. East Coast, the northward flowing Gulf Stream (GS) becomes a zonal jet and carries along its frontal characteristics of strong flow and sea surface temperature gradients into the North Atlantic at midlatitudes. The separation location where it leaves the coast is also an anchor point for the wintertime synoptic storm track across North America to continue to develop and head across the ocean. We examine the meridional variability of the separated GS path on interannual to decadal time scales as an agent for similar changes in the storm track and blocking variability at midtroposphere from 1979 to 2012. We find that periods of northerly (southerly) GS path are associated with increased (suppressed) excursions of the synoptic storm track to the northeast over the Labrador Sea and reduced (enhanced) Greenland blocking. In both instances, GS shifts lead those in the midtroposphere by a few months.

Description: Our research has been conducted with the support of NSF (AGS‐1355339, OCE‐1419235, and OCE‐1242989), NASA (NNX13AM59G), and NOAA CPO Climate Variability and Predictability Program (NA13OAR4310139) grants to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. We also thank three reviewers for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Quarterly estimates of our Gulf Stream Index are available as a data file in the supporting information.

Description: 2019-07-29

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 46(5), (2019):2704-2714, doi:10.1029/2019GL081919.

Description: Seismic images and glider sections of the Gulf Stream front along the U.S. eastern seaboard capture deep, lens‐shaped submesoscale features. These features have radii of 5–20 km, thicknesses of 150–300 m, and are located at depths greater than 500 m. These are typical signatures of anticyclonic submesoscale coherent vortices. A submesoscale‐resolving realistic simulation, which reproduces submesoscale coherent vortices with the same characteristics, is used to analyze their generation mechanism. Submesoscale coherent vortices are primarily generated where the Gulf Stream meets the Charleston Bump, a deep topographic feature, due to the frictional effects and intense mixing in the wake of the topography. These submesoscale coherent vortices can transport waters from the Charleston Bump's thick bottom mixed layer over long distances and spread them within the subtropical gyre. Their net effect on heat and salt distribution remains to be quantified.

Description: J. G. gratefully acknowledges support from the French government, managed by the French National Agency for Research (ANR), through programs ISblue (ANR‐17‐EURE‐0015) and LabexMER (ANR‐10‐LABX‐19) and from LEFE/IMAGO through the project AO2017‐994457‐RADII. Simulations were performed using HPC resources from GENCI‐TGCC (grant 2017‐A0010107638). Simulations output is available upon request. Seismic data were processed using the Echos software package by Paradigm, Matlab, and Generic Mapping Tools. The Eastern North America Margin Community Seismic Experiment was funded by the National Science Foundation under grant OCE‐1347498 and UNOLS; cruise data are freely available via the Marine Geoscience Data System Academic Seismic Portal at Lamont‐Doherty Earth Observatory (http://www.marine-geo.org/portals/seismic/). Spray glider observations in the Gulf Stream are available from http://spraydata.ucsd.edu and should be cited using the following DOI (10.21238/S8SPRAY2675; Todd & Owens, 2016). Spray glider operations were funded by the National Science Foundation (OCE‐1633911) and the Office of Naval Research (N000141713040).

Description: 2019-08-27

Description: A© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Cedarholm, E. R., Rypina, I. I., Macdonald, A. M., & Yoshida, S. Investigating subsurface pathways of Fukushima cesium in the Northwest Pacific. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(12), (2019): 6821-6829, doi:10.1029/2019GL082500.

Description: Advective pathways for Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP)‐derived cesium observed in 2013 at 166°E south of the Kuroshio Extension (KE) at 〉500 m on the 26.5σθ isopycnal are investigated. Attention is paid to the KE's role in shaping these pathways. Using a high‐resolution model, particle trajectories were simulated backward and forward in time on 26.5σθ between the 2013 observations and the 2011 source. A large fraction of backtracked trajectories interacted with the mixed layer just offshore of the FDNPP. The likeliest pathway reaching the deepest 2013 observed cesium location runs along the KE out to ~165°E, where it turns sharply southward. Forward trajectory statistics suggest that for 26.5σθ waters originating north of the KE, this current acted as a permeable barrier west of 155–160°E. The deepest 2011 model mixed layers suggest that FDNPP‐derived radionuclides may have been present at 30°N in 2013 at greater depths and densities (700 m; 26.8σθ).

Description: We would like to thank our two anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions that improved this paper. Work by Cedarholm on this project was supported by the WHOI Summer Student Fellowship program and was her UNH senior Capstone project. Rypina, Macdonald, and Yoshida acknowledge salary and project support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant OCE‐1356630. Additionally, Rypina would like to acknowledge support from NSF grant OCE‐1558806. CLIVAR PO2 and P10 observations, data sets 318M20130321 and 49NZ2012011, were obtained from the CCHDO (https://cchdo.ucsd.edu/) and the HYCOM output, data set GLBa0.08 expt_90.0v, from https://www.hycom.org/. Argo profiles were obtained from http://www.argodatamgt.org, the ISAS‐15 0.5°gridded Argo‐data‐alone product from https://www.seanoe.org, and delayed‐time allsat AVISO gridded surface velocity estimates from http://marine.copernicus.eu. Extended acknowledgements in Text S4.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(6), (2019): 3987-4002, doi:10.1029/2019JC015134.

Description: Mooring data from September 2011 to July 2013 on the Iceland slope north of Denmark Strait are analyzed to better understand the structure and variability of the North Icelandic Jet (NIJ). Three basic configurations of the flow were identified: (1) a strong separated East Greenland Current (EGC) on the mid‐Iceland slope coincident with a weak NIJ on the upper slope, (2) a merged separated EGC and NIJ, and (3) a strong NIJ located at its climatological mean position, coincident with a weak signature of the separated EGC at the base of the Iceland slope. Our study reveals that the NIJ‐dominant scenario was present during different times of the year for the two successive mooring deployments—appearing mainly from September to February the first year and from January to July the second year. Furthermore, when this scenario was active it varied on short timescales. An energetics analysis demonstrates that the high‐frequency variability is driven by mean‐to‐eddy baroclinic conversion at the shoreward edge of the NIJ, consistent with previous modeling work. The seasonal timing of the NIJ dominant scenario is investigated in relation to the atmospheric forcing upstream of Denmark Strait. The resulting lagged correlations imply that strong turbulent heat fluxes in a localized region on the continental slope of Iceland, south of the Spar Fracture zone, lead to a stronger NIJ dominant state with a two‐month lag. This can be explained dynamically in terms of previous modeling work addressing the circulation response to dense water formation near an island.

Description: The authors thank the crew members of the R/V Knorr, RRS James Clark Ross, and R/V Bjarni Sæmundsson for the deployment and recovery of the moorings. D. Torres and F. Bahr processed the second year of mooring data. We thank K. Våge, B. Harden, Z. Song, J. Li, and M. Li for helpful discussions regarding the work. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation under grants OCE‐1558742 (J. H., R. P., P. L., and M. S.) and OCE‐1534618 (M. S.). The mooring data are available at http://kogur.whoi.edu/php/index.php.

Description: 2019-12-04

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Earth and Space Science, 6(7), (2019): 1220-1233, doi:10.1029/2018EA000436.

Description: Ocean evaporative fluxes are a critical component of the Earth's energy and water cycle, but their estimation remains uncertain. Near‐surface humidity is a required input to bulk flux algorithms that relate mean surface values to the turbulent fluxes. Several satellite‐derived turbulent flux products have been developed over the last decade that utilize passive microwave imager observations to estimate the surface humidity. It is known, however, that these estimates tend to diverge from one another and from in situ observations. Analysis of current state‐of‐the‐art satellite estimates provided herein reveals that regional‐scale biases in these products remain significant. Investigations reveal a link between the spatial coherency of the observed biases to atmospheric dynamical controls of water vapor vertical stratification, cloud liquid water, and sea surface temperature. This information is used to develop a simple state‐dependent bias correction that results in more consistent ocean surface humidity estimates. A principal conclusion is that further improvements to ocean near‐surface humidity estimation using microwave radiometers requires incorporation of prior information on water vapor stratification and sea surface temperature.

Description: Data products used in this study are made publicly available via multiple repositories hosted by individual data product producers. JOFUROv2 and JOFUROv3 data are available online (https://j‐ofuro.scc.u‐tokai.ac.jp/en/). IFREMERv4 and NOCS surface data are available through the OceanHeatFlux project (https://www.ifremer.fr/oceanheatflux/Data). GSSTFv3 (doi:10.5067/MEASURES/GSSTF/DATA301) and MERRA‐2 data are obtained from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center. HOAPSv3.2 data are available from Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (https://doi.org/10.5676/EUM_SAF_CM/HOAPS/V001). SEAFLUXv2 data are accessed through the National Centers for Environmental Information (http://doi.org/10.7289/V59K4885). Daily surface observations were provided by David Berry and Elizabeth Kent. This work is supported under the NASA Physical Oceanography Program Grant NNX14AK48A.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 20XX. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 46(12), (2019): 6435-6442, doi:10.1029/2019GL082523.

Description: Acoustic Doppler current profiler and conductivity‐temperature‐depth data acquired in Yellowstone Lake reveal the presence of a buoyant plume above the “Deep Hole” hydrothermal system, located southeast of Stevenson Island. Distributed venting in the ~200 × 200‐m hydrothermal field creates a plume with vertical velocities of ~10 cm/s in the mid‐water column. Salinity profiles indicate that during the period of strong summer stratification the plume rises to a neutral buoyancy horizon at ~45‐m depth, corresponding to a ~70‐m rise height, where it generates an anomaly of ~5% (−0.0014 psu) relative to background lake water. We simulate the plume with a numerical model and find that a heat flux of 28 MW reproduces the salinity and vertical velocity observations, corresponding to a mass flux of 1.4 × 103 kg/s. When observational uncertainties are considered, the heat flux could range between 20 to 50 MW.

Description: The authors thank Yellowstone National Park Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, The Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration, and Paul Fucile for logistical support. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation grants EAR‐1516361 to R. S., EAR‐1514865 to K. L., and EAR‐1515283 to R. H. and J. F. All work in Yellowstone National Park was completed under an authorized Yellowstone research permit (YELL‐2018‐SCI‐7018). CTD and ADCP profiles reported in this paper are available through the Marine Geoscience Data System (doi:10.1594/IEDA/324713 and doi:10.1594/IEDA/324712, accessed last on 17 April 2019, respectively).

Description: 2019-11-09

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles 32(12), (2019): 1759-1775, doi:10.1029/2018GB006026.

Description: Karst subterranean estuaries (KSEs) extend into carbonate platforms along 12% of all coastlines. A recent study has shown that microbial methane (CH4) consumption is an important component of the carbon cycle and food web dynamics within flooded caves that permeate KSEs. In this study, we obtained high‐resolution (~2.5‐day) temporal records of dissolved methane concentrations and its stable isotopic content (δ13C) to evaluate how regional meteorology and hydrology control methane dynamics in KSEs. Our records show that less methane was present in the anoxic fresh water during the wet season (4,361 ± 89 nM) than during the dry season (5,949 ± 132 nM), suggesting that the wet season hydrologic regime enhances mixing of methane and other constituents into the underlying brackish water. The δ13C of the methane (−38.1 ± 1.7‰) in the brackish water was consistently more 13C‐enriched than fresh water methane (−65.4 ± 0.4‰), implying persistent methane oxidation in the cave. Using a hydrologically based mass balance model, we calculate that methane consumption in the KSE was 21–28 mg CH4·m−2·year−1 during the 6‐month dry period, which equates to ~1.4 t of methane consumed within the 102‐ to 138‐km2 catchment basin for the cave. Unless wet season methane consumption is much greater, the magnitude of methane oxidized within KSEs is not likely to affect the global methane budget. However, our estimates constrain the contribution of a critical resource for this widely distributed subterranean ecosystem.

Description: Funding for T. M. I. and D. B. was provided by TAMU‐CONACYT (project 2015‐049). D. B. was supported by the Research‐in‐Residence program (NSF award 1137336, Inter‐university Training in Continental‐scale Ecology), the Boost Fellowship (Texas A&M University at Galveston), and the Postdoctoral Scholar Program by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and U.S. Geological Survey. We thank Jacob Pohlman and István Brankovits for assistance with field expeditions. Special thanks to the late Bil Phillips (Speleotech) for the support and expertise provided us during field operations. We also thank Pete van Hengstum for productive discussions and guidance during the development of the manuscript. Michael Casso and Adrian Green helped with laboratory analyses. The manuscript was greatly improved by helpful comments from an anonymus reviewer, Jeff Chanton, and Meagan Gonneea. This work is contribution number UMCES 5541. Any use of trade names is for descriptive purposes and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. The authors declare no competing financial interests. Archival data are available through the USGS ScienceBase‐Catalog at https://doi.org/10.5066/P9U0KRVM.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 46(7) (2019): 3927-3935, doi: 10.1029/2018GL081593.

Description: Climate model simulations of the summer South Asian monsoon predict increased rainfall in response to anthropogenic warming. However, instrumental data show a decline in Indian rainfall in recent decades, underscoring the critical need for additional, independent records of past monsoon variability. Here, we present new reconstructions of annual summer South Asian Monsoon circulation over the past 250 years, based on the geochemical barium‐calcium signature of dust present in Red Sea corals. These records reveal how monsoon circulation has evolved with warming climate and indicate a significant multi‐century long monsoon intensification, with decreased multidecadal variance. Stronger monsoon circulation would have increased the moisture transport from the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal over the Indian subcontinent. If these trends continue, the monsoon circulation and associated moisture transport and precipitation will remain strong and stable for several decades.

Description: We thank Editor Valerie Trouet and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. We gratefully acknowledge Justin Ossolinski for assistance during core drilling; Maureen Auro, Laura Robinson, and Tom Marchitto for use of lab space and for technical advice; Margaret Sulanowska for providing XRD analysis of dust samples; and Sujata Murty and Ryan Davis for assistance in the lab. We thank Falmouth Hospital for use of X‐ray equipment. We acknowledge the use of the NSF‐supported WHOI ICP‐MS facility and thank Scot Birdwhistell for his assistance. This research was supported by grants to K. A. H. from NSF award OCE‐1031288 and KAUST award USA00002, and by a WHOI Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded to S. P. B. All data presented in this manuscript will be made publicly available online through the NOAA NCDC Paleoclimatology data archive (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data‐access/paleoclimatology‐data/).

Description: 2019-09-28

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 46(6), (2019):3398-3407, doi:10.1029/2018GL080890.

Description: The hazards posed by infrequent major floods to communities along the Susquehanna River and the ecological health of Chesapeake Bay remain largely unconstrained due to the short length of streamgage records. Here we develop a history of high‐flow events on the Susquehanna River during the late Holocene from flood deposits contained in MD99‐2209, a sediment core recovered in 26 m of water from Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis, Maryland, United States. We identify coarse‐grained deposits left by Hurricane Agnes (1972) and the Great Flood of 1936, as well as during three intervals that predate instrumental flood records (~1800–1500, 1300–1100, and 400–0 CE). Comparison to sedimentary proxy data (pollen and ostracode Mg/Ca ratios) from the same core site indicates that prehistoric flooding on the Susquehanna often accompanied cooler‐than‐usual winter/spring temperatures near Chesapeake Bay—typical of negative phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation and conditions thought to foster hurricane landfalls along the East Coast.

Description: This work was supported by the USGS Land Change Science Program and Northeast Region. We appreciated the assistance of Brian Buczkowski, Andrew Zimmerman, and John Bratton in locating archived core materials and data sets. We thank John Jackson and Bryan Landacre for assistance with XRD and pollen analysis, respectively. We thank two anonymous reviewers, Lynn Wingard (USGS), and Rob Stamm (USGS) for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Data generated for this report can be found in the accompanying supporting information.

Description: 2019-08-19

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles 32(12), (2019): 1738-1758, doi:10.1029/2018GB005994.

Description: Sinking particles strongly regulate the distribution of reactive chemical substances in the ocean, including particulate organic carbon and other elements (e.g., P, Cd, Mn, Cu, Co, Fe, Al, and 232Th). Yet, the sinking fluxes of trace elements have not been well described in the global ocean. The U.S. GEOTRACES campaign in the North Atlantic (GA03) offers the first data set in which the sinking flux of carbon and trace elements can be derived using four different radionuclide pairs (238U:234Th ;210Pb:210Po; 228Ra:228Th; and 234U:230Th) at stations co‐located with sediment trap fluxes for comparison. Particulate organic carbon, particulate P, and particulate Cd fluxes all decrease sharply with depth below the euphotic zone. Particulate Mn, Cu, and Co flux profiles display mixed behavior, some cases reflecting biotic remineralization, and other cases showing increased flux with depth. The latter may be related to either lateral input of lithogenic material or increased scavenging onto particles. Lastly, particulate Fe fluxes resemble fluxes of Al and 232Th, which all have increasing flux with depth, indicating a dominance of lithogenic flux at depth by resuspended sediment transported laterally to the study site. In comparing flux estimates derived using different isotope pairs, differences result from different timescales of integration and particle size fractionation effects. The range in flux estimates produced by different methods provides a robust constraint on the true removal fluxes, taking into consideration the independent uncertainties associated with each method. These estimates will be valuable targets for biogeochemical modeling and may also offer insight into particle sinking processes.

Description: This study grew out of a synthesis workshop at the Lamont‐Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in August 2016. This workshop was sponsored by the U.S. GEOTRACES Project Office (NSF 1536294) and the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCP) Project Office (NSF 1558412 and NASA NNX17AB17G). The U.S. National Science Foundation supported all of the analytical work on GA03. Kuanbo Zhou measured 228Th in the large size class particles (NSF 0925158 to WHOI). NSF 1061128 to Stony Brook University supported the BaRFlux project, for which Chistina Heilbrun is acknowledged for laboratory and field work. The lead author acknowledges support from a start‐up grant from the University of Southern Mississippi. Two anonymous reviewers are thanked for their constructive comments. All GEOTRACES GA03 data used in this study are accessible through the Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (http://data.bco‐dmo.org/jg/dir/BCO/GEOTRACES/NorthAtlanticTransect/), and derived parameters are reported in the supporting information.

Description: 2019-05-22

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Bodini, N., Lundquist, J. K., & Kirincich, A. US East Coast lidar measurements show offshore wind turbines will encounter very low atmospheric turbulence. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(10), (2019):5582-5591, doi:10.1029/2019GL082636.

Description: The rapid growth of offshore wind energy requires accurate modeling of the wind resource, which can be depleted by wind farm wakes. Turbulence dissipation rate (ϵ) governs the accuracy of model predictions of hub‐height wind speed and the development and erosion of wakes. Here we assess the variability of turbulence kinetic energy and ϵ using 13 months of observations from a profiling lidar deployed on a platform off the Massachusetts coast. Offshore, ϵ is 2 orders of magnitude smaller than onshore, with a subtle diurnal cycle. Wind direction influences the annual cycle of turbulence, with larger values in winter when the wind flows from the land, and smaller values in summer, when the wind flows from open ocean. Because of the weak turbulence, wind plant wakes will be stronger and persist farther downwind in summer.

Description: Collection of the wind data was funded by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center through agreements with WHOI and AWS Truepower. The authors appreciate the efforts of the MVCO/ASIT technicians and AWS staff who collected the data. This analysis was supported by the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (AGS‐1554055) to J. K. L. and N. B., and by internal funds from WHOI for A. K. This work was authored (in part) by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract DE‐AC36‐08GO28308. Funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid‐up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The lidar observations used here are described at https://www.masscec.com/masscec-metocean-data-initiative, and available at https://doi.org/10.26025/1912/24050. The postprocessed data and the scripts used for the Figures of the present paper can be found at https://github.com/nicolabodini/GRL_OffshoreTurbulence.

Description: 2019-11-01

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(4), (2019):2750-2768, doi: 10.1029/2018JC014635.

Description: The advances in the modern sea level observing system have allowed for a new level of knowledge of regional and global sea level in recent years. The combination of data from satellite altimeters, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, and Argo profiling floats has provided a clearer picture of the different contributors to sea level change, leading to an improved understanding of how sea level has changed in the present and, by extension, may change in the future. As the overlap between these records has recently extended past a decade in length, it is worth examining the extent to which internal variability on timescales from intraseasonal to decadal can be separated from long‐term trends that may be expected to continue into the future. To do so, a combined modal decomposition based on cyclostationary empirical orthogonal functions is performed simultaneously on the three data sets, and the dominant shared modes of variability are analyzed. Modes associated with the trend, seasonal signal, El Niño–Southern Oscillation, and Pacific decadal oscillation are extracted and discussed, and the relationship between regional patterns of sea level change and their associated global signature is highlighted.

Description: The satellite altimetry grids are available from NASA JPL/PO.DAAC at the following location: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset. GRACE land water storage data are available at http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov, supported by the NASA MEaSUREs Program. The gridded fields based on Argo data used to compute the steric sea level data are available at http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Gridded_fields.html. The gridded fields based on Argo data used to compute the steric sea level data are available at http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Gridded_fields.html. The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. B. D. H., F. W. L., J. T. R., and P. R. T. acknowledge support from NASA grant 80NSSC17K0564 (NASA Sea Level Change Team). C. G. P. acknowledges support from NSF awards OCE‐1558966 and OCE‐1834739. K. Y. K. was partially supported for this research by the National Science Foundation of Korea under the grant NRF‐ 2017R1A2B4003930.

Description: 2019-09-21

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(4), (2019):2861-2875, doi: 10.1029/2018JC014175.

Description: Strong variability in sea surface salinity (SSS) in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETPac) on intraseasonal to interannual timescales was studied using data from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity, Soil Moisture Active Passive, and Aquarius satellite missions. A zonal wave number‐frequency spectral analysis of SSS reveals a dominant timescale of 50–180 days and spatial scale of 8°–20° of longitude with a distinct seasonal cycle and interannual variability. This intraseasonal SSS signal is detailed in the study of 19 individual ETPac eddies over 2010–2016 identified by their sea level anomalies, propagating westward at a speed of about 17 cm/s. ETPac eddies trap and advect water in their core westward up to 40° of longitude away from the coast. The SSS signatures of these eddies, with an average anomaly of 0.5‐pss magnitude difference from ambient values, enable the study of their dynamics and the mixing of their core waters with the surroundings. Three categories of eddies were identified according to the location where they were first tracked: (1) in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, (2) in the Gulf of Papagayo, and (3) in the open ocean near 100°W–12°N. They all traveled westward near 10°N latitude. Category 3 is of particular interest, as eddies seeded in the Gulf of Tehuantepec grew substantially in the vicinity of the Clipperton Fracture Zone rise and in a region where the mean zonal currents have anticyclonic shear. The evolution of the SSS signature associated with the eddies indicates the importance of mixing to their dissipation.

Description: This research was carried out in part at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA and part at LOCEAN (Sorbonne Université, CNRS, IRD, MNHN) under a CNES Postdoctoral fellowship. This work is supported by NASA Grants NNX11AE83G and NNX14AH38G and is a contribution to the TOSCA/SMOS‐Ocean proposal supported by CNES. We thank the reviewers for their thoughtfully comments that lead to a much‐improved manuscript. We benefited from numerous data sets made freely available and are listed here: The SMOS debias_v2 SSS have been produced by LOCEAN laboratory and ACRI‐st company that participate to the Ocean Salinity Expertise Center (CEC‐OS) of Centre Aval de Traitement des Donnees SMOS (CATDS). of CATDS at IFREMER, Plouzane, France (http://www.catds.fr/Products, see documentation: http://www.catds.fr/Products/Available‐products‐from‐CEC‐OS/L3‐Debiased‐Locean‐v2); the Aquarius/SAC‐D and SMAP data was produced by Remote Sensing Systems and distributed by PODAAC (https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/AQUARIUS_L3_SSS_SMI_7DAY_V4; https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/SMAP_RSS_L3_SSS_SMI_8DAY‐RUNNINGMEAN_V2); the SLA product is processed and distributed by CMEMS (http://marine.copernicus.eu); the global atlas of eddies is produced by AVISO (https://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/products/value‐added‐products/global‐mesoscale‐eddy‐trajectory‐product.html); the GPCP precipitation data set (http://eagle1.umd.edu/GPCP_CDR/Monthly_Data) is described in the project technical report (http://eagle1.umd.edu/GPCP_ICDR/GPCPmonthlyV2.3.pdf); Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution OAFlux evaporation data set (ftp://ftp.whoi.edu/pub/science/oaflux/data_v3); UCAR high‐resolution terrain data set (High res terrain data set https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds759.2/#!description); Chelton et al. (1998) Global Atlas of the First‐Baroclinic Rossby Radius of Deformation and Gravity‐Wave Phase Speed (http://www‐po.coas.oregonstate.edu/research/po/research/rossby_radius/).

Description: 2019-09-28

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters, 46(8), (2019):4346-4355, doi:10.1029/2018GL081577.

Description: A yearlong record from moored current, temperature, conductivity, and four mixing meters (χpods) in the northernmost international waters of the Bay of Bengal quantifies upper‐ocean turbulent diffusivity of heat (Kt) and its response to the Indian monsoon. Data indicate (1) pronounced intermittency in turbulence at semidiurnal, diurnal, and near‐inertial timescales, (2) strong turbulence above 25‐m depth during the SW (summer) and NE (winter) monsoon relative to the transition periods (compare Kt 〉 10−4 m2/s to Kt  ∼ 10−5 m2/s, and (3) persistent suppression of turbulence (Kt 〈 10−5 m2/s) for 3 to 5 months in the latter half of the SW monsoon coincident with enhanced near‐surface stratification postarrival of low‐salinity water from the Brahmaputra‐Ganga‐Meghna delta and monsoonal precipitation. This suppression promotes maintenance of the low‐salinity surface waters within the interior of the bay preconditioning the upper northern Indian Ocean for the next year's monsoon.

Description: This work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) Grants N00014‐14‐1‐0236 and N00014‐17‐1‐2472, and the Ocean Mixing and Monsoon program of the Indian Ministry of Earth Sciences. The deployment of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution mooring and RW and JTF were supported by ONR Grant N00014‐13‐1‐0453. The deployment and recovery of the mooring were carried out by RV Sagar Nidhi and RV Sagar Kanya, respectively, with the help of the crew and science parties. Thanks to National Institute of Ocean Technology (India) for buoy support. The authors acknowledge invaluable discussions with Johannes Becherer, Deepak Cherian, and Sally Warner at CEOAS, OSU, and Dipanjan Chaudhuri, J Sree Lekha, and Debasis Sengupta at CAOS, IISc. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their detailed reviews, which have helped sharpen many aspects of this paper. Data can be accessed as described in section S2.

Description: 2019-10-08

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth 124(5), (2019): 4710-4727, doi:10.1029/2018JB017080.

Description: The southernmost Mariana margin lacks a mature island arc and thus differs significantly from the central‐north Mariana and Izu‐Bonin margins. This paper presents a new P wave velocity model of the crust and uppermost mantle structure based on a 349‐km‐long profile of wide‐angle reflection/refraction data. The active source seismic experiment was conducted from the subducting Pacific plate to the overriding Philippine plate, passing through the Challenger Deep. The subducting plate has an average crustal thickness of ~6.0 km with Vp of 7.0 ± 0.2 km/s at the base of the crust and low values of only 5.5–6.9 km/s near the trench axis. The uppermost mantle of the subducting plate is characterized by low velocities of 7.0–7.3 km/s. The overriding plate has a maximum crustal thickness of ~18 km beneath the forearc with Vp of ~7.4 km/s at the crustal bottom and 7.5–7.8 km/s in the uppermost mantle. A zone of slight velocity reduction is imaged beneath the Southwest Mariana Rift that is undergoing active rifting. The observed significant velocity reduction in a near‐trench crustal zone of ~20–30 km in the subducting plate is interpreted as a result of faulting‐induced porosity changes and fracture‐filling fluids. The velocity reduction in the uppermost mantle of both subducting and overriding plates is interpreted as mantle serpentinization with fluid sources from dehydration of the subducting plate and/or fluid penetration along faults.

Description: Data acquisition and sample collections were supported by the Mariana Trench Initiative of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). We are grateful to the science parties and crews of R/V Shiyan 3 of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, CAS, for contributions to data acquisition. Constructive reviews by Robert Stern, Martha Savage, and anonymous reviewers significantly improved the manuscript. We thank Gaohua Zhu, Fan Zhang, Chunfeng Li, Zhen Sun, Zhi Wang, and Minghui Zhao for helpful discussion. The bathymetric maps were plotted using GMT (Wessel & Smith, 1995). Digital files of the velocity models and selected raw data are deposited and accessible online (at https://pan.baidu.com/s/1AbDJOgLZhYn1C‐3sg7S9Xw). This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Program of CAS (XDA13010101), CAS (Y4SL021001, QYZDY‐SSW‐DQC005, and 133244KYSB20180029), Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, CAS (OMG18‐03), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41890813, 41676042, U1701641, 91628301, 41576041, and U1606401), and HKSAR Research Grant Council grants (14313816).

Description: 2019-10-05

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in DeGrandpre, M. D., Lai, C., Timmermans, M., Krishfield, R. A., Proshutinsky, A., & Torres, D. Inorganic carbon and pCO(2) variability during ice formation in the Beaufort Gyre of the Canada Basin. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, 124(6), (2019): 4017-4028, doi:10.1029/2019JC015109.

Description: Solute exclusion during sea ice formation is a potentially important contributor to the Arctic Ocean inorganic carbon cycle that could increase as ice cover diminishes. When ice forms, solutes are excluded from the ice matrix, creating a brine that includes dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (AT). The brine sinks, potentially exporting DIC and AT to deeper water. This phenomenon has rarely been observed, however. In this manuscript, we examine a ~1 year pCO2 mooring time series where a ~35‐μatm increase in pCO2 was observed in the mixed layer during the ice formation period, corresponding to a simultaneous increase in salinity from 27.2 to 28.5. Using salinity and ice based mass balances, we show that most of the observed increases can be attributed to solute exclusion during ice formation. The resulting pCO2 is sensitive to the ratio of AT and DIC retained in the ice and the mixed layer depth, which controls dilution of the ice‐derived AT and DIC. In the Canada Basin, of the ~92 μmol/kg increase in DIC, 17 μmol/kg was taken up by biological production and the remainder was trapped between the halocline and the summer stratified surface layer. Although not observed before the mooring was recovered, this inorganic carbon was likely later entrained with surface water, increasing the pCO2 at the surface. It is probable that inorganic carbon exclusion during ice formation will have an increasingly important influence on DIC and pCO2 in the surface of the Arctic Ocean as seasonal ice production and wind‐driven mixing increase with diminishing ice cover.

Description: Research Associate Cory Beatty (University of Montana) prepared the CO2 instruments and helped with the mooring deployments and data processing. Pierce Fix (undergraduate intern, University of Montana) helped with the mass balance modeling. The moorings were designed and deployed by personnel at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Michiyo Yamamoto‐Kawai (University of Tokyo) and Marty Davelaar (Institute of Ocean Sciences; IOS) provided the alkalinity and dissolved inorganic carbon data. We thank the captain, officers, crew, and chief scientists (Bill Williams and Sarah Zimmerman, IOS) of the CCGS Louis S. St. Laurent. The data used in this study are available through the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Arctic Data Center (https://arcticdata.io). This research was made possible by grants from the NSF Arctic Observing Network program (ARC‐1107346, PLR‐1302884, PLR‐1504410, and PLR‐1723308).

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 34(7), (2019): 1218-1233, doi:10.1029/2018PA003537.

Description: The last deglaciation (~20–10 kyr BP) was characterized by a major shift in Earth's climate state, when the global mean surface temperature rose ~4 °C and the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increased ~80 ppmv. Model simulations suggest that the initial 30 ppmv rise in atmospheric CO2 may have been driven by reduced efficiency of the biological pump or enhanced upwelling of carbon‐rich waters from the abyssal ocean. Here we evaluate these hypotheses using benthic foraminiferal B/Ca (a proxy for deep water [CO32−]) from a core collected at 1,100‐m water depth in the Southwest Atlantic. Our results imply that [CO32−] increased by 22 ± 2 μmol/kg early in Heinrich Stadial 1, or a decrease in ΣCO2 of approximately 40 μmol/kg, assuming there were no significant changes in alkalinity. Our data imply that remineralized phosphate declined by approximately 0.3 μmol/kg during Heinrich Stadial 1, equivalent to 40% of the modern remineralized signal at this location. Because tracer inversion results indicate remineralized phosphate at the core site reflects the integrated effect of export production in the sub‐Antarctic, our results imply that biological productivity in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean was reduced early in the deglaciation, contributing to the initial rise in atmospheric CO2.

Description: We would like to thank Bärbel Hönisch at Lamont‐Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University for help with methods development and Sarah McCart for technical assistance with ICP‐MS analyses. We would also like to give special thanks to Anna lisa Mudahy, who was responsible for picking a substantial portion of the benthic foraminifera used in this study. We are grateful to the WHOI core lab for sample collection and archiving. This work was supported by NSF grant OCE‐1702231 to D. L.

Description: 2020-01-24

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 46(12), (2019): 6745-6754, doi:10.1029/2019GL082867.

Description: Although photochemical oxidation is an environmental process that drives organic carbon (OC) cycling, its quantitative detection remains analytically challenging. Here, we use samples from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to test the hypothesis that the stable oxygen isotope composition of oil (δ18OOil) is a sensitive marker for photochemical oxidation. In less than one‐week, δ18OOil increased from −0.6 to 7.2‰, a shift representing ~25% of the δ18OOC dynamic range observed in nature. By accounting for different oxygen sources (H2O or O2) and kinetic isotopic fractionation of photochemically incorporated O2, which was −9‰ for a wide range of OC sources, a mass balance was established for the surface oil's elemental oxygen content and δ18O. This δ18O‐based approach provides novel insights into the sources and pathways of hydrocarbon photo‐oxidation, thereby improving our understanding of the fate and transport of petroleum hydrocarbons in sunlit waters, and our capacity to respond effectively to future spills.

Description: We thank Robert Ricker and Greg Baker (NOAA) for helping secure the oil residues, James Payne (Payne Environmental Consultants, Inc.) for collecting many of the surface oil residues, Joy Matthews (UC Davis) for exceptional assistance in preparing and analyzing the oil residues for oxygen content and isotopes, Hank Levi and Art Gatenby at CSC Scientific Company for assistance with the water content measurements, Robyn Comny (US EPA) for providing the Alaska North Slope oil, and Rose Cory (UMich) for discussions about our findings. Special thanks to John Hayes who provided constructive feedback on a preliminary version of this dataset prior to his passing in February of 2017. We thank Alex Sessions (CalTech) for his constructive feedback during the review process. This work was supported, in part, by National Science Foundation grants RAPID OCE‐1043976 (CMR), OCE‐1333148 (CMR), OCE‐1333026 (CMS), OCE‐1333162 (DLV), OCE‐1841092 (CPW), NASA NESSF NNX15AR62H (KMS), the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative grants ‐ 015, SA 16‐30, and DEEP‐C consortium, a fellowship through the Hansewissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Studies) to SDW, and assistant scientist salary support from the Frank and Lisina Hoch Endowed Fund (CPW).

Description: 2019-11-30

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Selden, C. R., Mulholland, M. R., Bernhardt, P. W., Widner, B., Macias-Tapia, A., Ji, Q., & Jayakumar, A. Dinitrogen fixation across physico-chemical gradients of the Eastern Tropical North Pacific oxygen deficient zone. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 33, (2019): 1187-1202, doi:10.1029/2019GB006242.

Description: The Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean hosts one of the world's largest oceanic oxygen deficient zones (ODZs). Hot spots for reactive nitrogen (Nr) removal processes, ODZs generate conditions proposed to promote Nr inputs via dinitrogen (N2) fixation. In this study, we quantified N2 fixation rates by 15N tracer bioassay across oxygen, nutrient, and light gradients within and adjacent to the ODZ. Within subeuphotic oxygen‐deplete waters, N2 fixation was largely undetectable; however, addition of dissolved organic carbon stimulated N2 fixation in suboxic (〈20 μmol/kg O2) waters, suggesting that diazotroph communities are likely energy limited or carbon limited and able to fix N2 despite high ambient concentrations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen. Elevated rates (〉9 nmol N·L−1·day−1) were also observed in suboxic waters near volcanic islands where N2 fixation was quantifiable to 3,000 m. Within the overlying euphotic waters, N2 fixation rates were highest near the continent, exceeding 500 μmol N·m−2·day−1 at one third of inshore stations. These findings support the expansion of the known range of diazotrophs to deep, cold, and dissolved inorganic nitrogen‐replete waters. Additionally, this work bolsters calls for the reconsideration of ocean margins as important sources of Nr. Despite high rates at some inshore stations, regional N2 fixation appears insufficient to compensate for Nr loss locally as observed previously in the Eastern Tropical South Pacific ODZ.

Description: We gratefully acknowledge the efforts of the captain and crew of the NOAA vessel Ronald H. Brown and the scientists who participated in the collection and analysis of the data presented here, particularly Shannon Cofield, Wei Yan, Nicole Travis, and Matt Forbes. We thank the Monterey Bay Aquatic Research Institute for the use of their pump profiling system and Margeurite Blum for her expertise in its use. Finally, we thank Bess Ward for the use of her facilities at Princeton University. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Ocean Sciences (NSF‐OCE) Grant OCE‐1356056 to M. R. M. and A. J. Data will be made available at the website (https://www.bco‐dmo.org/project/472492). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth 124 (2019): 9980– 9998, doi:10.1029/2019JB017584.

Description: Macrostructures preserved in deformed rocks are essential for the understanding of their evolution, especially when the deformation is weak and hard to discriminate in regional scale or purely through geophysical data. In order to resolve the inconsistency between NS trending fracture zones and NE oriented spreading fabrics of the South China Sea during the latest spreading stage, we analyzed macrostructures identifiable from the basalt and consolidated sediment samples of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Sites U1431 and U1433. These two sites are close to the East and Southwest relict spreading ridges and provide critical information on the latest spreading stages. The structures in the basalt of both sites suggest two dominant orientations of NS and NE. At U1431, sediments show mainly WNW trending slickensides, different from that of basalt. At U1433, no structures were found in postspreading sediment. Thus, NE and NS trending structures in basalt are most possibly formed by seafloor spreading. Crosscutting relationship suggests that NE trending structures formed first, followed by NS and finally WNW trending structures. These observations are consistent with geophysical features. Magnetic anomalies and ocean bottom seismometer velocity suggest that the latest relict ridge of the East Subbasin coincides with the EW trending seamount chain. Located between the relict ridges of East and Southwest Subbasins, NS trending Zhongnan‐Liyue Fracture Zone had acted as the latest transform fault. Based on the above evidences, we proposed that the South China Sea may have experienced a short period of NS oriented spreading after earlier SE spreading. These results resolve the previous inconsistencies.

Description: We appreciate Anne Replumaz and other anonymous reviewers for the constructive suggestions, which improve this paper to a great extent. This research was supported by Guangdong NSF research team project (2017A030312002), K. C. Wong Education Foundation (GJTD‐2018‐13), the IODP‐China Foundation, the NSFC Projects (91628301, 41376027, 41576070, 41576068, 41430962, 41674069, 91528302, and 20153410), U.S. National Science Foundation through Grant EAR‐1250444, the Guangdong Province Foundation (41576068), and the Joint Foundation of the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Guangdong Province (U1301233). Fucheng Li is thanked for helping with the earthquake epicenter figure for the study area. All the sample photos can be accessed via web address (http://www.iodp.tamu.edu). The archive halves of samples are kept in the Kochi repository. The paleomag data will be published by Xixi Zhao separately. All the other geophysical data have been published; for example, the multichannel seismic could be referenced to Li et al. (2015a), and the gravity data and magnetic anomaly data are from Sandwell et al. (2014) and Ishihara and Kisimoto (1996).

Description: 2020-02-29

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 20(7), (2019): 3347-3374, doi:10.1029/2019GC008374.

Description: Subduction is a key component of Earth's long‐term sulfur cycle; however, the mechanisms that drive sulfur from subducting slabs remain elusive. Isotopes are a sensitive indicator of the speciation of sulfur in fluids, sulfide dissolution‐precipitation reactions, and inferring fluid sources. To investigate these processes, we report δ34S values determined by secondary ion mass spectroscopy in sulfides from a global suite of exhumed high‐pressure rocks. Sulfides are classified into two petrogenetic groups: (1) metamorphic, which represent closed‐system (re)crystallization from protolith‐inherited sulfur, and (2) metasomatic, which formed during open system processes, such as an influx of oxidized sulfur. The δ34S values for metamorphic sulfides tend to reflect their precursor compositions: −4.3 ‰ to +13.5 ‰ for metabasic rocks, and −32.4 ‰ to −11.0 ‰ for metasediments. Metasomatic sulfides exhibit a range of δ34S from −21.7 ‰ to +13.9 ‰. We suggest that sluggish sulfur self‐diffusion prevents isotopic fractionation during sulfide breakdown and that slab fluids inherit the isotopic composition of their source. We estimate a composition of −11 ‰ to +8 ‰ for slab fluids, a significantly smaller range than observed for metasomatic sulfides. Large fractionations during metasomatic sulfide precipitation from sulfate‐bearing fluids, and an evolving fluid composition during reactive transport may account for the entire ~36 ‰ range of metasomatic sulfide compositions. Thus, we suggest that sulfates are likely the dominant sulfur species in slab‐derived fluids.

Description: All isotopic data and analysis locations are detailed in the supporting information accompanying this article. The authors would like to thank B. Monteleone and M. Yates for assistance with SIMS and EPMA analyses, respectively. J. Selverstone is thanked for providing samples and D. Whitney for providing additional field context. The authors would also like to thank J. Alt, C. LaFlamme, and an anonymous reviewer for their thoughtful and thorough reviews, as well as careful editorial handling by J. Blichert‐Toft. This project was funded by National Science Foundation Grant EAR 1725301 awarded to A. M. C. and a Geological Society of America grant to J. B. W.

Description: 2019-12-14

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 46(14), (2019): 8572-8581, doi: 10.1029/2019GL083039.

Description: As Arctic temperatures rise at twice the global rate, sea ice is diminishing more quickly than models can predict. Processes that dictate Arctic cloud formation and impacts on the atmospheric energy budget are poorly understood, yet crucial for evaluating the rapidly changing Arctic. In parallel, warmer temperatures afford conditions favorable for productivity of microorganisms that can effectively serve as ice nucleating particles (INPs). Yet the sources of marine biologically derived INPs remain largely unknown due to limited observations. Here we show, for the first time, how biologically derived INPs were likely transported hundreds of kilometers from deep Bering Strait waters and upwelled to the Arctic Ocean surface to become airborne, a process dependent upon a summertime phytoplankton bloom, bacterial respiration, ocean dynamics, and wind‐driven mixing. Given projected enhancement in marine productivity, combined oceanic and atmospheric transport mechanisms may play a crucial role in provision of INPs from blooms to the Arctic atmosphere.

Description: We sincerely thank the U.S. Coast Guard and crew of the Healy for assistance with equipment installation and guidance, operation of the underway and CTD systems, and general operation of the vessel during transit and at targeted sampling stations. We would also like to thank Allan Bertram, Meng Si, Victoria Irish, and Benjamin Murray for providing INP data from their previous studies. J. M. C., R. P., P. L., L. T., and E. B. were funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Arctic Research Program. J. C. was supported by the NOAA Experiential Research & Training Opportunities (NERTO) program. T. A. and N. C. were supported through the NOAA Earnest F. Hollings Scholarship program. A. P. was funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant PLR‐1303617. Russel C. Schnell and Michael Spall are acknowledged for insightful discussions during data analysis and interpretation. There are no financial conflicts of interest for any author. INP data are available in the supporting information, while remaining DBO‐NCIS data presented in the manuscript are available online (at https://www2.whoi.edu/site/dboncis/).

Description: 2020-01-15

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(8), (2019): 5723-5746, doi:10.1029/2018JC014453.

Description: Estimates of the kinetic energy transfer from the wind to the ocean are often limited by the spatial and temporal resolution of surface currents and surface winds. Here we examine the wind work in a pair of global, very high‐resolution (1/48° and 1/24°) MIT general circulation model simulations in Latitude‐Longitude‐polar Cap (LLC) configuration that provide hourly output at spatial resolutions of a few kilometers and include tidal forcing. A cospectrum analysis of wind stress and ocean surface currents shows positive contribution at large scales (〉300 km) and near‐inertial frequency and negative contribution from mesoscales, tidal frequencies, and internal gravity waves. Larger surface kinetic energy fluxes are in the Kuroshio in winter at large scales (40 mW/m2) and mesoscales (−30 mW/m2). The Kerguelen region is dominated by large scale (∼20 mW/m2), followed by inertial oscillations in summer (13 mW/m2) and mesoscale in winter (−12 mW/m2). Kinetic energy fluxes from internal gravity waves (−0.1 to −9.9 mW/m2) are generally stronger in summer. Surface kinetic energy fluxes in the LLC simulations are 4.71 TW, which is 25–85% higher than previous global estimates from coarser (1/6–1/10°) general ocean circulation models; this is likely due to improved representation of wind variability (6‐hourly, 0.14°, operational European Center for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts). However, the low wind power input to the near‐inertial frequency band obtained with LLC (0.16 TW) compared to global slab models suggests that wind variability on time scales less than 6 hr and spatial scales less than 15 km are critical to better representing the wind power input in ocean circulation models.

Description: We thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments that led to an improved manuscript. We are grateful to Jörn Callies and Laurie Padman for fruitful discussions. This work is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through the project “Towards improved estimates of upper ocean energetics: Science motivation for the simultaneous measurement of ocean surface vector winds and currents” (Grant NNX15AG42G) and through NASA Grant NNX14AM71G and NNX16AH76G. Model output from global 1/48° and 1/24° ECCO2 MITgcm simulations is freely available to the community. For access of the full solutions, we recommend that users apply for an HEC account at NASA Ames. Data are provided online (∼dmenemen/llc/). Users without a NASA Ames account may explore what is available online (https://data.nas.nasa.gov/ecco/). This work was, in part, performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Color maps used in this contribution are from Thyng et al. (2016). To Teresa and Francesc, for their patience.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(7), (2019): 4605-4617, doi: 10.1029/2018JC014928.

Description: We report the significant impact of near‐inertial waves (NIWs) on vertical mixing and air‐sea carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes in the Southern Ocean using a biogeochemical model coupled to an eddy‐rich ocean circulation model. The effects of high‐frequency processes are quantified by comparing the fully coupled solution (ONLINE) to two offline simulations based on 5‐day‐averaged output of the ONLINE simulation: one that uses vertical mixing archived from the ONLINE model (CTRL) and another in which vertical mixing is recomputed from the 5‐day average hydrodynamic fields (5dAVG). In this latter simulation, processes with temporal variabilities of a few days including NIWs are excluded in the biogeochemical simulation. Suppression of these processes reduces vertical shear and vertical mixing in the upper ocean, leading to decreased supply of carbon‐rich water from below, less CO2 outgassing in austral winter, and more uptake in summer. The net change amounts up to one third of the seasonal variability in Southern Ocean CO2 flux. Our results clearly demonstrate the importance of resolving high‐frequency processes such as NIWs to better estimate the carbon cycle in numerical model simulations.

Description: The MITgcm can be obtained from http://mitgcm.org website. Resources supporting this work were provided by the NASA High‐End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center with the Award SMD‐15‐5752. H. S., J. M., and D. J. M. were supported by the NSF MOBY project (OCE‐1048926 and OCE‐1048897). H. S. acknowledges the support by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant (NRF‐2019R1C1C1003663) and Yonsei University Research Fund of 2018‐22‐0053. D. J. M. also gratefully acknowledges NASA support.

Description: 2019-12-17

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(8), (2019): 5313-5335, doi:10.1029/2019JC015014.

Description: The Lagrangian method—where current location and intensity are determined by tracking the movement of flow along its path—is the oldest technique for measuring the ocean circulation. For centuries, mariners used compilations of ship drift data to map out the location and intensity of surface currents along major shipping routes of the global ocean. In the mid‐20th century, technological advances in electronic navigation allowed oceanographers to continuously track freely drifting surface buoys throughout the ice‐free oceans and begin to construct basin‐scale, and eventually global‐scale, maps of the surface circulation. At about the same time, development of acoustic methods to track neutrally buoyant floats below the surface led to important new discoveries regarding the deep circulation. Since then, Lagrangian observing and modeling techniques have been used to explore the structure of the general circulation and its variability throughout the global ocean, but especially in the Atlantic Ocean. In this review, Lagrangian studies that focus on pathways of the upper and lower limbs of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), both observational and numerical, have been gathered together to illustrate aspects of the AMOC that are uniquely captured by this technique. These include the importance of horizontal recirculation gyres and interior (as opposed to boundary) pathways, the connectivity (or lack thereof) of the AMOC across latitudes, and the role of mesoscale eddies in some regions as the primary AMOC transport mechanism. There remain vast areas of the deep ocean where there are no direct observations of the pathways of the AMOC.

Description: The authors extend their thanks to Xiaobiao Xu for valuable comments on the first draft of this manuscript. A. B. (WHOI), H. F., M. S. L., N. F., and K. D. were supported by Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program grants OCE‐1259618, OCE‐1259013, and OCE‐1259102 from the U.S. National Science Foundation. S. Z. was supported by the Climate Program Office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under award NA16OAR4310168. M. L. was supported through the MOVE project, funded by NOAA's Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program under award NA15OAR4320071. A. B. (GEOMAR) and S. R. received funding from the Cluster of Excellence 80 “The Future Ocean” within the framework of the Excellence Initiative by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) on behalf of the German federal and state governments (grant CP1412) and by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the SPACES projects AGULHAS (grant 03F0750A) and CASISAC (grant 03F0796A). No new data are reported in this project. The data mentioned in the text may be found in repositories cited in each previously published paper cited in this review manuscript.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 19(11), (2018): 4218-4235. doi: 10.1029/2018GC007654

Description: Hydrocarbon migration and emplacement processes remain underconstrained despite the vast potential economic value associated with oil and gas. Noble gases provide information about hydrocarbon generation, fluid migration pathways, reservoir conditions, and the relative volumes of oil versus water in the subsurface. Produced gas He‐Ne‐Ar‐Kr‐Xe data from two distinct oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico (Genesis and Hoover‐Diana) are used to calibrate a model that takes into account both water‐oil solubility exchange and subsequent gas cap formation. Reconstructed noble gas signatures in oils reflect simple (two‐phase) oil‐water exchange imparted during migration from the source rock to the trap, which are subsequently modified by gas cap formation at current reservoir conditions. Calculated, oil to water volume ratios (Vo/Vw) in Tertiary‐sourced oils from the Hoover‐Diana system are 2–3 times greater on average than those in the Jurassic sourced oils from the Genesis reservoirs. Higher Vo/Vw in Hoover‐Diana versus Genesis can be interpreted in two ways: either (1) the Hoover reservoir interval has 2–3 times more oil than any of the individual Genesis reservoirs, which is consistent with independent estimates of oil in place for the respective reservoirs, or (2) Genesis oils have experienced longer migration pathways than Hoover‐Diana oils and thus have interacted with more water. The ability to determine a robust Vo/Vw, despite gas cap formation and possible gas cap loss, is extremely powerful. For example, when volumetric hydrocarbon ratios are combined with independent estimates of hydrocarbon migration distance and/or formation fluid volumes, this technique has the potential to differentiate between large and small oil accumulations.

Description: We thank ExxonMobil for funding and providing the samples. In addition, we thank James Scott and two anonymous reviewers for their comprehensive and constructive reviews, as well as Janne Blichert‐Toft for editorial handling.

Description: 2019-04-10

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 20(5), (2019):2462-2472, doi:10.1029/2019GC008250.

Description: Methane hydrate occurs naturally under pressure and temperature conditions that are not straightforward to replicate experimentally. Xenon has emerged as an attractive laboratory alternative to methane for studying hydrate formation and dissociation in multiphase systems, given that it forms hydrates under milder conditions. However, building reliable analogies between the two hydrates requires systematic comparisons, which are currently lacking. We address this gap by developing a theoretical and computational model of gas hydrates under equilibrium and nonequilibrium conditions. We first compare equilibrium phase behaviors of the Xe·H2O and CH4·H2O systems by calculating their isobaric phase diagram, and then study the nonequilibrium kinetics of interfacial hydrate growth using a phase field model. Our results show that Xe·H2O is a good experimental analog to CH4·H2O, but there are key differences to consider. In particular, the aqueous solubility of xenon is altered by the presence of hydrate, similar to what is observed for methane; but xenon is consistently less soluble than methane. Xenon hydrate has a wider nonstoichiometry region, which could lead to a thicker hydrate layer at the gas‐liquid interface when grown under similar kinetic forcing conditions. For both systems, our numerical calculations reveal that hydrate nonstoichiometry coupled with hydrate formation dynamics leads to a compositional gradient across the hydrate layer, where the stoichiometric ratio increases from the gas‐facing side to the liquid‐facing side. Our analysis suggests that accurate composition measurements could be used to infer the kinetic history of hydrate formation in natural settings where gas is abundant.

Description: This work was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, DOE [awards DE‐FE0013999 and DE‐SC0018357 (to R. J.) and DOE Interagency Agreement DE‐FE0023495 (to W. F. W.)]. X. F. acknowledges support by the Miller Research Fellowship at the University of California Berkeley. W. F. W. acknowledges support from the U.S. Geological Survey's Gas Hydrate Project and the Survey's Coastal, Marine Hazards and Resources Program. L. C. F. acknowledges funding from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grants RYC‐2012‐11704 and CTM2014‐54312‐P). L. C. F. and R. J. acknowledge funding from the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, through a Seed Fund grant. The simulation data are available on the UC Berkeley Dash repository at https://doi.org/10.6078/D1G67B.

Description: 2019-11-06

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, 124(6), (2019): 1591-1603, doi:10.1029/2018JG004803.

Description: Tropical dry forests in eastern and southern Africa cover 2.5 × 106 km2, support wildlife habitat and livelihoods of more than 150 million people, and face threats from land use and climate change. To inform conservation, we need better understanding of ecosystem processes like nutrient cycling that regulate forest productivity and biomass accumulation. Here we report on patterns in nitrogen (N) cycling across a 100‐year forest regrowth chronosequence in the Tanzanian Miombo woodlands. Soil and vegetation indicators showed that low ecosystem N availability for trees persisted across young to mature forests. Ammonium dominated soil mineral N pools from 0‐ to 15‐cm depth. Laboratory‐measured soil N mineralization rates across 3‐ to 40‐year regrowth sites showed no significant trends and were lower than mature forest rates. Aboveground tree N pools increased at 6 to 7 kg N·ha−1·yr−1, accounting for the majority of ecosystem N accumulation. Foliar δ15N 〈0‰ in an N‐fixing canopy tree across all sites suggested that N fixation may contribute to ecosystem N cycle recovery. These results contrast N cycling in wetter tropical and Neotropical dry forests, where indicators of N scarcity diminish after several decades of regrowth. Our findings suggest that minimizing woody biomass removal, litter layer, and topsoil disturbance may be important to promote N cycle recovery and natural regeneration in Miombo woodlands. Higher rates of N mineralization in the wet season indicated a potential that climate change‐altered rainfall leading to extended dry periods may lower N availability through soil moisture‐dependent N mineralization pathways, particularly for mature forests.

Description: This study depended on the knowledge, insights, and cooperation of many people and institutions. We thank the Millennium Villages Project‐Mbola site for providing introductions to the landscape and village headmen in many regions. We thank the ARI‐Tumbi staff (now TARI‐Tumbi) in Tabora, Tanzania for providing invaluable logistical support in identifying forest regrowth sites and help with labwork in Tabora, Tanzania. We thank other key local organizations, including Tabora Development Foundation Trust (Dick Mlimuka, Oscar Kisanji) and Tanzania Forest Service (Bw. Relingo), for logistical support and transportation. We thank many village headmen and farmers for access to forest sites within their lands for sampling. Finally, we would like to thank the MBL Stable Isotope laboratory and Dr. Marshall Otter for his expertise with producing and interpreting soil and leaf C, N and stable isotope data. This study was funded in part by NSF PIRE Grant OISE 0968211, a Dissertation Support Grant to Marc Mayes from Brown University (2015–2016), and completed with permission and cooperation from the Tanzania Commission on Science and Technology (COSTECH permits 2013‐261‐NA‐2014‐199 and 2015‐183‐ER‐2014‐199). Data and code for analyses can be accessed at a Github repository: https://github.com/mtm17/MiomboN.git.

Description: 2019-11-08

Description: The cumulative Greenland freshwater flux anomaly has exceeded 5,000 km3 since the 1990s. The volume of this surplus freshwater is expected to cause substantial freshening in the North Atlantic. Analysis of hydrographic observations in the subpolar seas reveals freshening signals in the 2010s. The sources of this freshening are yet to be determined. In this study, the relationship between the surplus Greenland freshwater flux and this freshening is tested by analyzing the propagation of the Greenland freshwater anomaly and its impact on salinity in the subpolar North Atlantic based on observational data and numerical experiments with and without the Greenland runoff. A passive tracer is continuously released during the simulations at freshwater sources along the coast of Greenland to track the Greenland freshwater anomaly. Tracer budget analysis shows that 44% of the volume of the Greenland freshwater anomaly is retained in the subpolar North Atlantic by the end of the simulation. This volume is sufficient to cause strong freshening in the subpolar seas if it stays in the upper 50–100 m. However, in the model the anomaly is mixed down to several hundred meters of the water column resulting in smaller magnitudes of freshening compared to the observations. Therefore, the simulations suggest that the accelerated Greenland melting would not be sufficient to cause the observed freshening in the subpolar seas and other sources of freshwater have contributed to the freshening. Impacts on salinity in the subpolar seas of the freshwater transport through Fram Strait and precipitation are discussed.

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Dukhovskoy, D. S., Yashayaev, I., Proshutinsky, A., Bamber, J. L., Bashmachnikov, I. L., Chassignet, E. P., Lee, C. M., & Tedstone, A. J. Role of Greenland freshwater anomaly in the recent freshening of the subpolar North Atlantic. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, 124(5), (2019): 3333-3360, doi:10.1029/2018JC014686.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(7), (2019): 4416-4432, doi: 10.1029/2019JC015185.

Description: Synoptic and historical shipboard data, spanning the period 1981–2017, are used to investigate the seasonal evolution of water masses on the northeastern Chukchi shelf and quantify the circulation patterns and their impact on nutrient distributions. We find that Alaskan coastal water extends to Barrow Canyon along the coastal pathway, with peak presence in September, while the Pacific Winter Water (WW) continually drains off the shelf through the summer. The depth‐averaged circulation under light winds is characterized by a strong Alaskan Coastal Current (ACC) and northward flow through Central Channel. A portion of the Central Channel flow recirculates anticyclonically to join the ACC, while the remainder progresses northeastward to Hanna Shoal where it bifurcates around both sides of the shoal. All of the branches converge southeast of the shoal and eventually join the ACC. The wind‐forced response has two regimes: In the coastal region the circulation depends on wind direction, while on the interior shelf the circulation is sensitive to wind stress curl. In the most common wind‐forced state—northeasterly winds and anticyclonic wind stress curl—the ACC reverses, the Central Channel flow penetrates farther north, and there is mass exchange between the interior and coastal regions. In September and October, the region southeast of Hanna Shoal is characterized by elevated amounts of WW, a shallower pycnocline, and higher concentrations of nitrate. Sustained late‐season phytoplankton growth spurred by this pooling of nutrients could result in enhanced vertical export of carbon to the seafloor, contributing to the maintenance of benthic hotspots in this region.

Description: The authors acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the many crew members who sailed on the different cruises of the USCGC Healy and the R/V Palmer. This study would not have been possible without their ongoing efforts to carry out successful science operations. Seth Danielson performed the quality control of the Barrow wind data. Funding was provided by the following sources: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Grant NA14‐OAR4320158 (P. L., R. P., and L. M.), National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants OPP‐1702371 and OPP‐1733564 (R. P. and F. B.) and PLR‐1303617 (R. P., K. A., and K. L.), NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program DGE‐0645962 (K. L.), National Aeronautics and Space Administration award NNX10AF42G (R. P., K. A., and K. L.), and NOAA's Ocean Observing and Monitoring Division, Climate Program Office Fund 100007298 (C. M.). This publication is partially funded by the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) under NOAA Cooperative Agreement NA15OAR4320063 and is contribution EcoFOCI‐0924 to the Ecosystems and Fisheries‐Oceanography Coordinated Investigations, 4944 to PMEL. The CTD and shipboard ADCP data of the eight cruises are available from http://www.rvdata.us/, and the nutrients data can be accessed from https://arcticdata.io/.

Description: 2019-12-07

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(6), (2019): 3490-3507, doi:10.1029/2018JC014675.

Description: Offshore permafrost plays a role in the global climate system, but observations of permafrost thickness, state, and composition are limited to specific regions. The current global permafrost map shows potential offshore permafrost distribution based on bathymetry and global sea level rise. As a first‐order estimate, we employ a heat transfer model to calculate the subsurface temperature field. Our model uses dynamic upper boundary conditions that synthesize Earth System Model air temperature, ice mass distribution and thickness, and global sea level reconstruction and applies globally distributed geothermal heat flux as a lower boundary condition. Sea level reconstruction accounts for differences between marine and terrestrial sedimentation history. Sediment composition and pore water salinity are integrated in the model. Model runs for 450 ka for cross‐shelf transects were used to initialize the model for circumarctic modeling for the past 50 ka. Preindustrial submarine permafrost (i.e., cryotic sediment), modeled at 12.5‐km spatial resolution, lies beneath almost 2.5 ×106km2 of the Arctic shelf. Our simple modeling approach results in estimates of distribution of cryotic sediment that are similar to the current global map and recent seismically delineated permafrost distributions for the Beaufort and Kara seas, suggesting that sea level is a first‐order determinant for submarine permafrost distribution. Ice content and sediment thermal conductivity are also important for determining rates of permafrost thickness change. The model provides a consistent circumarctic approach to map submarine permafrost and to estimate the dynamics of permafrost in the past.

Description: Boundary condition data are available online via the sources referenced in the manuscript. This work was partially funded by a Helmholtz Association of Research Centres (HGF) Joint Russian‐German Research Group (HGF JRG 100). This study is part of a project that has received funding from the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement 773421. Submarine permafrost studies in the Kara and Laptev Seas were supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR/RFFI) grants 18‐05‐60004 and 18‐05‐70091, respectively. The International Permafrost Association (IPA) and the Association for Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) supported research coordination that led to this study. We acknowledge coordination support of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) through their core project on Climate and Cryosphere (CliC). Thanks to Martin Jakobsson for providing a digitized version of the preliminary IHO delineation of the Arctic seas and to Guy Masters for access to the observational geothermal database. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Description: 2019-10-17

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 46 (2019): 10484–10494, doi:10.1029/2019GL083719.

Description: Tropical cyclones (hurricanes) generate intense surface ocean cooling and vertical mixing resulting in nutrient upwelling into the photic zone and episodic phytoplankton blooms. However, their influence on the deep ocean remains unknown. Here we present evidence that hurricanes also impact the ocean's biological pump by enhancing export of labile organic material to the deep ocean. In October 2016, Category 3 Hurricane Nicole passed over the Bermuda Time Series site in the oligotrophic NW Atlantic Ocean. Following Nicole's passage, particulate fluxes of lipids diagnostic of fresh phytodetritus, zooplankton, and microbial biomass increased by 30–300% at 1,500 m depth and 30–800% at 3,200 m depth. Mesopelagic suspended particles following Nicole were also enriched in phytodetrital material and in zooplankton and bacteria lipids, indicating particle disaggregation and a deepwater ecosystem response. Predicted climate‐induced increases in hurricane frequency and/or intensity may significantly alter ocean biogeochemical cycles by increasing the strength of the biological pump.

Description: This work and the Oceanic Flux Program time series were supported by the National Science Foundation Chemical Oceanography Program Grant OCE 1536644. The Bermuda Atlantic Time Series and Hydrostation S time series were supported by NSF Grants OCE 1756105 and OCE 1633125, respectively. We acknowledge the contributions of BATS technicians with CTD and pigment analyses. We sincerely thank the officers and crew of R/V Atlantic Explorer (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences) for their expert assistance on the cruises. The data used in this study are listed in the figures, tables, and references, and are also available in the NSF's Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO‐DMO, https://doi.org/10.1575/1912/bco‐dmo.775902.1).

Description: 2020-02-16

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(5), (2019): 2943-2968, doi:10.1029/2019JC015071.

Description: In the Southern Ocean, polynyas exhibit enhanced rates of primary productivity and represent large seasonal sinks for atmospheric CO2. Three contrasting east Antarctic polynyas were visited in late December to early January 2017: the Dalton, Mertz, and Ninnis polynyas. In the Mertz and Ninnis polynyas, phytoplankton biomass (average of 322 and 354 mg chlorophyll a (Chl a)/m2, respectively) and net community production (5.3 and 4.6 mol C/m2, respectively) were approximately 3 times those measured in the Dalton polynya (average of 122 mg Chl a/m2 and 1.8 mol C/m2). Phytoplankton communities also differed between the polynyas. Diatoms were thriving in the Mertz and Ninnis polynyas but not in the Dalton polynya, where Phaeocystis antarctica dominated. These strong regional differences were explored using physiological, biological, and physical parameters. The most likely drivers of the observed higher productivity in the Mertz and Ninnis were the relatively shallow inflow of iron‐rich modified Circumpolar Deep Water onto the shelf as well as a very large sea ice meltwater contribution. The productivity contrast between the three polynyas could not be explained by (1) the input of glacial meltwater, (2) the presence of Ice Shelf Water, or (3) stratification of the mixed layer. Our results show that physical drivers regulate the productivity of polynyas, suggesting that the response of biological productivity and carbon export to future change will vary among polynyas.

Description: This work was cofunded by the Australian Antarctic Division research projects AAS 4131 and 4291. This project was also supported by the Australian Government Cooperative Research Centres Programme through the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems (ACE CRC). S. Moreau and C. Genovese were supported by the Australian Research Council's Special Research Initiative for Antarctic Gateway Partnership (project ID SR140300001). V. Puigcorbé and M. Roca‐Martí are grateful for the support from Pere Masque and Edith Cowan University. M.C. Arroyo was supported by the Dickhut Fellowship, administered by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The authors would like to thank the officers and crew of the R/V Aurora Australis for their logistic support, the CSIRO hydrochemists for their analyses of nutrient concentrations, and E. J. Yang for her microscope analysis of phytoplankton species. We also want to thank two anonymous reviewers for their very good comments on this study. The data presented in this paper are available on the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) Data Centre at https://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/metadata_by_parameter.cfm.

Description: 2019-09-28

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(3), (2019): 1778-1794, doi:10.1029/2018JC014775.

Description: Abyssal ocean warming contributed substantially to anthropogenic ocean heat uptake and global sea level rise between 1990 and 2010. In the 2010s, several hydrographic sections crossing the South Pacific Ocean were occupied for a third or fourth time since the 1990s, allowing for an assessment of the decadal variability in the local abyssal ocean properties among the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. These observations from three decades reveal steady to accelerated bottom water warming since the 1990s. Strong abyssal (z 〉 4,000 m) warming of 3.5 (±1.4) m°C/year (m°C = 10−3 °C) is observed in the Ross Sea, directly downstream from bottom water formation sites, with warming rates of 2.5 (±0.4) m°C/year to the east in the Amundsen‐Bellingshausen Basin and 1.3 (±0.2) m°C/year to the north in the Southwest Pacific Basin, all associated with a bottom‐intensified descent of the deepest isotherms. Warming is consistently found across all sections and their occupations within each basin, demonstrating that the abyssal warming is monotonic, basin‐wide, and multidecadal. In addition, bottom water freshening was strongest in the Ross Sea, with smaller amplitude in the Amundsen‐Bellingshausen Basin in the 2000s, but is discernible in portions of the Southwest Pacific Basin by the 2010s. These results indicate that bottom water freshening, stemming from strong freshening of Ross Shelf Waters, is being advected along deep isopycnals and mixed into deep basins, albeit on longer timescales than the dynamically driven, wave‐propagated warming signal. We quantify the contribution of the warming to local sea level and heat budgets.

Description: S. G. P. was supported by a U.S. GO‐SHIP postdoctoral fellowship through NSF grant OCE‐1437015, which also supported L. D. T. and S. M. and collection of U.S. GO‐SHIP data since 2014 on P06, S4P, P16, and P18. G. C. J. is supported by the Global Ocean Monitoring and Observation Program, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Commerce and NOAA Research. B. M. S and S. E. W. were supported by the Australian Government Department of the Environment and CSIRO through the Australian Climate Change Science Programme and by the National Environmental Science Program. We are grateful for the hard work of the science parties, officers, and crew of all the research cruises on which these CTD data were collected. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments that improve the manuscript. This is PMEL contribution 4870. All CTD data sets used in this analysis are publicly available at the website (https://cchdo.ucsd.edu).

Description: 2019-08-20

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(3), (2019): 2088-2109, doi:10.1029/2018JC014583.

Description: As observations and models improve their resolution of oceanic motions at ever finer horizontal scales, interest has grown in characterizing the transition from the geostrophically balanced flows that dominate at large‐scale to submesoscale turbulence and waves that dominate at small scales. In this study we examine the mesoscale‐to‐submesoscale (100 to 10 km) transition in an eastern boundary current, the southern California Current System (CCS), using repeated acoustic Doppler current profiler transects, sea surface height from high‐resolution nadir altimetry and output from a (1/48)° global model simulation. In the CCS, the submesoscale is as energetic as in western boundary current regions, but the mesoscale is much weaker, and as a result the transition lacks the change in kinetic energy (KE) spectral slope observed for western boundary currents. Helmholtz and vortex‐wave decompositions of the KE spectra are used to identify balanced and unbalanced contributions. At horizontal scales greater than 70 km, we find that observed KE is dominated by balanced geostrophic motions. At scales from 40 to 10 km, unbalanced contributions such as inertia‐gravity waves contribute as much as balanced motions. The model KE transition occurs at longer scales, around 125 km. The altimeter spectra are consistent with acoustic Doppler current profiler/model spectra at scales longer than 70/125 km, respectively. Observed seasonality is weak. Taken together, our results suggest that geostrophic velocities can be diagnosed from sea surface height on scales larger than about 70 km in the southern CCS.

Description: This research was funded by NASA (NNX13AE44G, NNX13AE85G, NNX16AH67G, NNX16AO5OH, and NNX17AH53G). We thank Sung Yong Kim for providing the high‐frequency radar spectral estimates and the two anonymous reviewers for providing useful comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript. High‐frequency ALES data for Jason‐1 and Jason‐2 altimeters are available upon request (https://openadb.dgfi.tum.de/en/contact/ALES). Both AltiKa and Sentinel‐3 altimeter products were produced and distributed by the Copernicus Marine and Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS; http://www.marine.copernicus.eu). D. M. worked on the modeling component of this study at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). High‐end computing resources were provided by the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division of the Ames Research Center. The LLC output can be obtained from the ECCO project (ftp://ecco.jpl.nasa.gov/ECCO2/LLC4320/). The ADCP data are available at the Joint Archive for Shipboard ADCP data (JASADCP; http://ilikai.soest.hawaii.edu/sadcp).

Description: 2019-08-21

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 20(3), (2019): 1485-1507, doi:10.1029/2018GC007985.

Description: In 2015 a geothermal exploration well was drilled on the island of Tutuila, American Samoa. The sample suite from the drill core provides 645 m of volcanic stratigraphy from a Samoan volcano, spanning 1.45 million years of volcanic history. In the Tutuila drill core, shield lavas with an EM2 (enriched mantle 2) signature are observed at depth, spanning 1.46 to 1.44 Ma. These are overlain by younger (1.35 to 1.17 Ma) shield lavas with a primordial “common” (focus zone) component interlayered with lavas that sample a depleted mantle component. Following ~1.15 Myr of volcanic quiescence, rejuvenated volcanism initiated at 24.3 ka and samples an EM1 (enriched mantle 1) component. The timing of the initiation of rejuvenated volcanism on Tutuila suggests that rejuvenated volcanism may be tectonically driven, as Samoan hotspot volcanoes approach the northern terminus of the Tonga Trench. This is consistent with a model where the timing of rejuvenated volcanism at Tutuila and at other Samoan volcanoes relates to their distance from the Tonga Trench. Notably, the Samoan rejuvenated lavas have EM1 isotopic compositions distinct from shield lavas that are geochemically similar to “petit spot” lavas erupted outboard of the Japan Trench and late stage lavas erupted at Christmas Island located outboard of the Sunda Trench. Therefore, like the Samoan rejuvenated lavas, petit spot volcanism in general appears to be related to tectonic uplift outboard of subduction zones, and existing geochemical data suggest that petit spots share similar EM1 isotopic signatures.

Description: Reviews from Kaj Hoernle and three anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. M. G. J. acknowledges support from the American Samoa Power Authority and National Science Foundation grants OCE‐1736984 and EAR‐1624840. The Tutuila drill core was the brainchild of Tim Bodell, without whom we would still have no stratigraphic record of Tutuila volcanism. The support of Utu Abe Malae and Matamua Katrina Mariner was instrumental to the project's success. We dedicate this paper to the memory of Abe Malae and his efforts to support science and education in American Samoa. Images of the entire drill core are available online (escholarship.org/uc/item/6gg6p61w). All data presented are either part of this study or previously published and are referenced in text.

Description: 2019-08-13

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(7), (2019): 4618-4630, doi: 10.1029/2019JC014940.

Description: The Arctic Ocean mixed layer interacts with the ice cover above and warmer, nutrient‐rich waters below. Ice‐Tethered Profiler observations in the Canada Basin of the Arctic Ocean over 2006–2017 are used to investigate changes in mixed layer properties. In contrast to decades of shoaling since at least the 1980s, the mixed layer deepened by 9 m from 2006–2012 to 2013–2017. Deepening resulted from an increase in mixed layer salinity that also weakened stratification at the base of the mixed layer. Vertical mixing alone can explain less than half of the observed change in mixed layer salinity, and so the observed increase in salinity is inferred to result from changes in freshwater accumulation via changes to ice‐ocean circulation or ice melt/growth and river runoff. Even though salinity increased, the shallowest density surfaces deepened by 5 m on average suggesting that Ekman pumping over this time period remained downward. A deeper mixed layer with weaker stratification has implications for the accessibility of heat and nutrients stored in the upper halocline. The extent to which the mixed layer will continue to deepen appears to depend primarily on the complex set of processes influencing freshwater accumulation.

Description: We gratefully acknowledge J. Toole for helpful conversations. S. Cole was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant PLR‐1602926 and J. Stadler by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Summer Student Fellowship program. Profile data are available via the Ice‐Tethered Profiler program website: http://whoi.edu/itp. SSM/I ice concentration data were downloaded from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Description: 2019-12-22

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Druffel, E. R. M., Griffin, S., Wang, N., Garcia, N. G., McNichol, A. P., Key, R. M., & Walker, B. D. Dissolved organic radiocarbon in the central Pacific Ocean. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(10), (2019):5396-5403, doi:10.1029/2019GL083149.

Description: We report marine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations, and DOC ∆14C and δ13C values in seawater collected from the central Pacific. Surface ∆14C values are low in equatorial and polar regions where upwelling occurs and high in subtropical regions dominated by downwelling. A core feature of these data is that 14C aging of DOC (682 ± 86 14C years) and dissolved inorganic carbon (643 ± 40 14C years) in Antarctic Bottom Water between 54.0°S and 53.5°N are similar. These estimates of aging are minimum values due to mixing with deep waters. We also observe minimum ∆14C values (−550‰ to −570‰) between the depths of 2,000 and 3,500 m in the North Pacific, though the source of the low values cannot be determined at this time.

Description: We thank Jennifer Walker, Xiaomei Xu, and Dachun Zhang for their help with the stable carbon isotope measurements; John Southon and staff of the Keck Carbon Cycle AMS Laboratory for their assistance and advice; the support of chief scientists Samantha Siedlecki, Molly Baringer, Alison Macdonald, and Sabine Mecking; the guidance of Jim Swift and Dennis Hansell for shared ship time; and Sarah Bercovici for collecting water on the GoA cruise. We appreciate the comments of Christian Lewis and Niels Hauksson on this manuscript. This work was supported by NSF (OCE‐141458941 to E. R. M. D. and OCE‐0824864, OCE‐1558654, and Cooperative Agreement OCE1239667 to R. M. K. and A. P. M.), the Fred Kavli Foundation, the Keck Carbon Cycle AMS Laboratory, and the NSF/NOAA‐funded GO‐SHIP Program. This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs program (to B. D. W.) and an American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund New Directions grant (55430‐ND2 to E. R. M. D. and B. D. W.). Data from the P16N cruises are available in Table S2 in the Supporting Information and at the Repeat Hydrography Data Center at the CCHDO website (http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/oceans/index.html) using the expo codes 3RO20150329, 3RO20150410, and 3RO20150525. There are no real or perceived financial conflicts of interests for any author.

Description: 2019-11-02

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, 123(11), (2018): 7795-7818. doi: 10.1029/2018JC013794.

Description: This work studies the subduction of the shelf water along the onshore edge of a warm‐core ring that impinges on the edge of the Mid‐Atlantic Bight continental shelf. The dynamical analysis is based on observations by satellites and from the Ocean Observatories Initiative Pioneer Array observatory as well as idealized numerical model simulations. They together show that frontogenesis‐induced submesoscale frontal subduction with order‐one Rossby and Froude numbers occurs on the onshore edge of the ring. The subduction flow results from the onshore migration of the warm‐core ring that intensifies the density front on the interface of the ring and shelf waters. The subduction is a part of the cross‐front secondary circulation trying to relax the intensifying density front. The dramatically different physical and biogeochemical properties of the ring and shelf waters provide a great opportunity to visualize the subduction phenomenon. Entrained by the ring‐edge current, the subducted shelf water is subsequently transported offshore below a surface layer of ring water and alongside of the surface‐visible shelf‐water streamer. It explains the historical observations of isolated subsurface packets of shelf water along the ring periphery in the slope sea. Model‐based estimate suggests that this type of subduction‐associated subsurface cross‐shelfbreak transport of the shelf water could be substantial relative to other major forms of shelfbreak water exchange. This study also proposes that outward spreading of the ring‐edge front by the frontal subduction may facilitate entrainment of the shelf water by the ring‐edge current and enhances the shelf‐water streamer transport at the shelf edge.

Description: W. G. Z. was supported by the National Science Foundation under grants OCE‐1657853, OCE‐1657803, and OCE 1634965. JP is grateful for the support of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Summer Student Fellow Program in 2016 and 2017. W. G. Z. thanks Kenneth Brink, Glen Gawarkiewicz, Rocky Geyer, Steven Lentz, Dennis McGillicuddy, Robert Todd, and John Trowbridge for helpful discussions during the course of the study or useful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. The satellite sea surface temperature data were obtained from the University of Delaware Ocean Exploration, Remote Sensing, Biogeography Lab (led by Matthew Oliver), through the Mid‐Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS) data server (http://tds.maracoos.org/thredds/catalog.html). The OOI Pioneer Array mooring and glider data presented in this paper were downloaded from the National Science Foundation OOI data portal (http://ooinet.oceanobservatories.org) in July–August 2016.

Description: 2019-04-15

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 1123(11), (2018): 8568-8580. doi: 10.1029/2018JC014352.

Description: In the past decades, in the context of a changing ocean submitted to an increasing human activity, a progressive decrease in the frequencies (pitch) of blue whale vocalizations has been observed worldwide. Its causes, of natural or anthropogenic nature, are still unclear. Based on 7 years of continuous acoustic recordings at widespread sites in the southern Indian Ocean, we show that this observation stands for five populations of large whales. The frequency of selected units of vocalizations of fin, Antarctic, and pygmy blue whales has steadily decreased at a rate of a few tenths of hertz per year since 2002. In addition to this interannual frequency decrease, blue whale vocalizations display seasonal frequency shifts. We show that these intra‐annual shifts correlate with seasonal changes in the ambient noise near their call frequency. This ambient noise level, in turn, shows a strong correlation with the seasonal presence of icebergs, which are one of the main sources of oceanic noise in the Southern Hemisphere. Although cause‐and‐effect relationships are difficult to ascertain, wide‐ranging changes in the acoustic environment seem to have a strong impact on the vocal behavior of large baleen whales. Seasonal frequency shifts may be due to short‐term changes in the ambient noise, and the interannual frequency decline to long‐term changes in the acoustic properties of the ocean and/or in postwhaling changes in whale abundances.

Description: The authors wish to thank the Captains and crews of RV Marion Dufresne for the successful deployments and recoveries of the hydrophones of the DEFLOHYDRO (Royer, 2008) and OHASISBIO (Royer, 2009) experiments. French cruises were funded by the French Polar Institute (IPEV) with additional support from INSU‐CNRS. NOAA/PMEL also contributed to the DEFLOHYDRO project. E. C. L. was supported by a PhD fellowship from the University of Brest and from the Regional Council of Brittany (Conseil Régional de Bretagne). The contribution of Mickael Beauverger at LGO to the logistics and deployment of the OHASISBIO cruises is greatly appreciated. The data underlying this analysis (weekly averaged frequencies of Antarctic blue whales, pygmy blue whales, and fin whales and daily averaged noise levels at each site) are accessible at http://doi.org/10.17882/51007.

Description: 2019-05-27

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 123(11), (2018): 8411-8429, doi: 10.1029/2018JC014178.

Description: A method for estimating gross primary production (GPP) is presented and validated against a numerical model of Chesapeake Bay that includes realistic physical and biological forcing. The method statistically fits a photosynthesis‐irradiance response curve using the observed near‐surface time rate of change of dissolved oxygen and the incoming solar radiation, yielding estimates of the light‐saturated photosynthetic rate and the initial slope of the photosynthesis‐irradiance response curve. This allows estimation of GPP with 15‐day temporal resolution. The method is applied to the output from a numerical model that has high skill at reproducing both surface and near‐bottom dissolved oxygen variations observed in Chesapeake Bay in 2013. The rate of GPP predicted by the numerical model is known, as are the contributions from physical processes, allowing the proposed diel method to be rigorously assessed. At locations throughout the main stem of the Bay, the method accurately extracts the underlying rate of GPP, including pronounced seasonal variability and spatial variability. Errors associated with the method are primarily the result of contributions by the divergence in turbulent oxygen flux, which changes sign over the surface mixed layer. As a result, there is an optimal vertical location with minimal bias where application of the method is most accurate.

Description: This paper is the result of research funded in part by NOAA's U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Program Office as a subcontract to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution under award NA13NOS120139 to the Southeastern University Research Association. All of the model output, as well as both the CBIBS data (2010–2016) and the bottom oxygen data of Scully (2016b), are publicly available through the THREDDS server associated with the IOOS Coastal Modeling Testbed site: https://comt.ioos.us/projects/cb_hypoxia.

Description: 2019-05-24

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Theoretical considerations on factors confounding the interpretation of the oceanic carbon export ratio. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 32(11), (2018); 1644-1658, doi:10.1029/2018GB006003.

Description: The fraction of primary production exported out of the surface ocean, known as the export ratio (ef ratio), is often used to assess how various factors, including temperature, primary production, phytoplankton size, and community structure, affect the export efficiency of an ecosystem. To investigate possible causes for reported discrepancies in the dominant factors influencing the export efficiency, we develop a metabolism‐based mechanistic model of the ef ratio. Consistent with earlier studies, we find based on theoretical considerations that the ef ratio is a negative function of temperature. We show that the ef ratio depends on the optical depth, defined as the physical depth times the light attenuation coefficient. As a result, varying light attenuation may confound the interpretation of ef ratio when measured at a fixed depth (e.g., 100 m) or at the base of the mixed layer. Finally, we decompose the contribution of individual factors on the seasonality of the ef ratio. Our results show that at high latitudes, the ef ratio at the base of mixed layer is strongly influenced by mixed layer depth and surface irradiation on seasonal time scales. Future studies should report the ef ratio at the base of the euphotic layer or account for the effect of varying light attenuation if measured at a different depth. Overall, our modeling study highlights the large number of factors confounding the interpretation of field observations of the ef ratio.

Description: Z. L was supported by a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (Grant NNX13AN85H) and the Postdoctoral Scholarship Program at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. N. C. was supported by NASA Grant 5109296. Satellite data, nutrient concentration, and monthly MLD climatology are downloaded from NASA ocean color (http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/cms/), World Ocean Atlas (https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/woa13/), and http://www.ifremer.fr/cerweb/deboyer/mld/home.php, respectively.

Description: 2019-04-13

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124 (2019): 196-211, doi:10.1029/2018JC014313.

Description: Since the late nineteenth century, channel depths have more than doubled in parts of New York Harbor and the tidal Hudson River, wetlands have been reclaimed and navigational channels widened, and river flow has been regulated. To quantify the effects of these modifications, observations and numerical simulations using historical and modern bathymetry are used to analyze changes in the barotropic dynamics. Model results and water level records for Albany (1868 to present) and New York Harbor (1844 to present) recovered from archives show that the tidal amplitude has more than doubled near the head of tides, whereas increases in the lower estuary have been slight (〈10%). Channel deepening has reduced the effective drag in the upper tidal river, shifting the system from hyposynchronous (tide decaying landward) to hypersynchronous (tide amplifying). Similarly, modeling shows that coastal storm effects propagate farther landward, with a 20% increase in amplitude for a major event. In contrast, the decrease in friction with channel deepening has lowered the tidally averaged water level during discharge events, more than compensating for increased surge amplitude. Combined with river regulation that reduced peak discharges, the overall risk of extreme water levels in the upper tidal river decreased after channel construction, reducing the water level for the 10‐year recurrence interval event by almost 3 m. Mean water level decreased sharply with channel modifications around 1930, and subsequent decadal variability has depended both on river discharge and sea level rise. Channel construction has only slightly altered tidal and storm surge amplitudes in the lower estuary.

Description: Funding for D. K. R., W. R. G., and C. K. S. was provided by NSF Coastal SEES awards OCE-1325136 and OCE-1325102. Funding for S.T. and H. Z. was provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (award W1927 N-14-2-0015), and NSF (Career Award 1455350). Data supporting this study are posted to Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1298636).

Description: 2019-06-11

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Wave generation, dissipation, and disequilibrium in an embayment with complex bathymetry. Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, 123(11), (2018): 7856-7876, doi:10.1029/2018JC014381.

Description: Heterogeneous, sharply varying bathymetry is common in estuaries and embayments, and complex interactions between the bathymetry and wave processes fundamentally alter the distribution of wave energy. The mechanisms that control the generation and dissipation of wind waves in an embayment with heterogeneous, sharply varying bathymetry are evaluated with an observational and numerical study of the Delaware Estuary. Waves in the lower bay depend on both local wind forcing and remote wave forcing from offshore, but elsewhere in the estuary waves are controlled by the local winds and the response of the wavefield to bathymetric variability. Differences in the wavefield with wind direction highlight the impacts of heterogeneous bathymetry and limited fetch. Under the typical winter northwest wind conditions waves are fetch‐limited in the middle estuary and reach equilibrium with local water depth only in the lower bay. During southerly wind conditions typical of storms, wave energy is near equilibrium in the lower bay, and midestuary waves are attenuated by the combination of whitecapping and bottom friction, particularly over the steep, longitudinal shoals. Although the energy dissipation due to bottom friction is generally small relative to whitecapping, it becomes significant where the waves shoal abruptly due to steep bottom topography. In contrast, directional spreading keeps wave heights in the main channel significantly less than local equilibrium. The wave disequilibrium in the deep navigational channel explains why the marked increase in depth by dredging of the modern channel has had little impact on wave conditions.

Description: Funding was provided by National Science Foundation Coastal SEES: Toward Sustainable Urban Estuaries in the Anthropocene (OCE 1325136) and Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 107‐2611‐M‐006‐004). We thank James Kirby, Fengyan Shi, and the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and their insightful comments. We thank Tracy Quirk for providing wave measurements in Bombay Hook, DE and Stow Creek, NJ. We thank Katie Pijanowski for compiling historical and modern bathymetric data for the estuary. Data supporting this study are posted to Zenodo (http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1433055).

Description: 2019-04-04

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Using carbon isotope fractionation to constrain the extent of methane dissolution into the water column surrounding a natural hydrocarbon gas seep in the northern gulf of Mexico. Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, 19(11), (2018); 4459-4475., doi:10.1029/2018GC007705.

Description: A gas bubble seep located in the northern Gulf of Mexico was investigated over several days to determine whether changes in the stable carbon isotopic ratio of methane can be used as a tracer for methane dissolution through the water column. Gas bubble and water samples were collected at the seafloor and throughout the water column for isotopic ratio analysis of methane. Our results show that changes in methane isotopic ratios are consistent with laboratory experiments that measured the isotopic fractionation from methane dissolution. A Rayleigh isotope model was applied to the isotope data to determine the fraction of methane dissolved at each depth. On average, the fraction of methane dissolved surpasses 90% past an altitude of 400 m above the seafloor. Methane dissolution was also investigated using a modified version of the Texas A&M Oil spill (Outfall) Calculator (TAMOC) where changes in methane isotopic ratios could be calculated. The TAMOC model results show that dissolution depends on depth and bubble size, explaining the spread in measured isotopic ratios during our investigations. Both the Rayleigh and TAMOC models show that methane bubbles quickly dissolve following emission from the seafloor. Together, these results show that it is possible to use measurements of natural methane isotopes to constrain the extent of methane dissolution following seafloor emission.

Description: This research was made possible by two grants from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative: Gulf Integrated Spill Response (GISR) Consortium (awarded to J. D. K. and S. A. S.) and Center for Integrated Modeling and Assessment of the Gulf Ecosystem (C‐IMAGE) II (awarded to S. A. S.). Additional support was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (DE‐FE0028980; awarded to J. D. K.). Data are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative (GRIIDC). Methane concentration and isotopic ratio data can be found at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org/data/R1.x137.000:0025, and TAMOC model scripts and results are found at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org/data/R1.x137.000:0026. The coversion of methane isotopic ratio data used in this manuscript can be found at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org/data/R1.x137.000:0028. We want to thank the captain and crew of the E/V Nautilus and the operators of ROV Hercules and Argus during the GISR G08 cruise and Nicole Raineault for their outstanding support at sea. Acoustically identifying the bubble flare was managed by Andone Lavery, and support for collecting gas and water samples was provided by John Bailey. We also want to thank Sean Sylva for analytical assistance on shore, Inok Jun for helping create the sampling schematics, and David Brink‐Roby for helping create the sample site map.

Description: 2019-04-20

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 123(11), (2018): 8430-8443, doi: 10.1029/2018JC014179.

Description: A diel method for estimating gross primary production (GPP) is applied to nearly continuous measurements of near‐surface dissolved oxygen collected at seven locations throughout the main stem of Chesapeake Bay. The data were collected through the Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System and span the period 2010–2016. At all locations, GPP exhibits pronounced seasonal variability consistent temperature‐dependent phytoplankton growth. At the Susquehanna Buoy, which is located within the estuarine turbidity maximum, rates of GPP are negatively correlated with uncalibrated turbidity data consistent with light limitation at this location. The highest rates of GPP are located immediately down Bay from the estuarine turbidity maximum and decrease moving seaward consistent with nutrient limitation. Rates of GPP at the mouth (First Landing Buoy) are roughly a factor of 3 lower than the rates in the upper Bay (Patapsco). At interannual time scales, the summer (June–July) rate of GPP averaged over all stations is positively correlated (r2 = 0.62) with the March Susquehanna River discharge and a multiple regression model that includes spring river discharge, and summer water temperature can explain most (r2 = 0.88) of the interannual variance in the observed rate of GPP. The correlation with river discharge is consistent with an increase in productivity fueled by increased nutrient loading. More generally, the spatial and temporal patterns inferred using this method are consistent with our current understanding of primary production in the Bay, demonstrating the potential this method has for making highly resolved measurements in less well studied estuarine systems.

Description: This paper is the result of research funded in part by NOAA's U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Program Office as a subcontract to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution under award NA13NOS120139 to the Southeastern University Research Association. All of the data analyzed in this paper are publicly available including the CBIBS data (http://buoybay.noaa.gov), the NCEP NARR data (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd), and the Kd‐490 MODIS data (ftp://ftp.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/socd1/ecn/data/modis/k490noaa/monthly/cd/). Model output analyzed in this paper is publicly available through the THREDDS server associated with the IOOS Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed (COMT) site (https://comt.ioos.us/projects/cb_hypoxia). Postprocessed and compiled data for all seven CBIBS locations including the interpolated values of incoming solar radiation and satellite‐derived Kd‐490 can also be download from the COMT site.

Description: 2019-05-25

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(2), (2019):1005-1028, doi:10.1029/2018JC014585.

Description: A numerical model with a vortex force formalism is used to study the role of wind waves in the momentum budget and subtidal exchange of a shallow coastal plain estuary, Delaware Bay. Wave height and age in the bay have a spatial distribution that is controlled by bathymetry and fetch, with implications for the surface drag coefficient in young, underdeveloped seas. Inclusion of waves in the model leads to increases in the surface drag coefficient by up to 30% with respect to parameterizations in which surface drag is only a function of wind speed, in agreement with recent observations of air‐sea fluxes in estuaries. The model was modified to prevent whitecapping wave dissipation from generating breaking forces since that contribution is integrally equivalent to the wind stress. The proposed adjustment is consistent with previous studies of wave‐induced nearshore currents and with additional parameterizations for breaking forces in the model. The mean momentum balance during a simulated wind event was mainly between the pressure gradient force and surface stress, with negligible contributions by vortex, wave breaking (i.e., depth‐induced), and Stokes‐Coriolis forces. Modeled scenarios with realistic Delaware bathymetry suggest that the subtidal bay‐ocean exchange at storm time scales is sensitive to wave‐induced surface drag coefficient, wind direction, and mass transport due to the Stokes drift. Results herein are applicable to shallow coastal systems where the typical wave field is young (i.e., wind seas) and modulated by bathymetry.

Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation Coastal SEES grant 1325136. We acknowledge Christopher Sommerfield's Group, Jia‐Lin Chen, and Julia Levin who provided assistance with the model configuration. We also thank Nirnimesh Kumar, Greg Gerbi, Melissa Moulton, and the Rutgers Ocean Modeling group for constructive feedback. Insightful comments by two anonymous reviewers helped improve the manuscript. Model files are available in an open access repository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1695900).

Description: 2019-07-28