ALBERT

Description: Glacial isostatic adjustment is largely governed by the rheological properties of the Earth's mantle. Large mass redistributions in the ocean–cryosphere system and the subsequent response of the viscoelastic Earth have led to dramatic sea level changes in the past. This process is ongoing, and in order to understand and predict current and future sea level changes, the knowledge of mantle properties such as viscosity is essential. In this study, we present a method to obtain estimates of mantle viscosities by the assimilation of relative sea level rates of change into a viscoelastic model of the lithosphere and mantle. We set up a particle filter with probabilistic resampling. In an identical twin experiment, we show that mantle viscosities can be recovered in a glacial isostatic adjustment model of a simple three-layer Earth structure consisting of an elastic lithosphere and two mantle layers of different viscosity. We investigate the ensemble behaviour on different parameters in the following three set-ups: (1) global observations data set since last glacial maximum with different ensemble initialisations and observation uncertainties, (2) regional observations from Fennoscandia or Laurentide/Greenland only, and (3) limiting the observation period to 10 ka until the present. We show that the recovery is successful in all cases if the target parameter values are properly sampled by the initial ensemble probability distribution. This even includes cases in which the target viscosity values are located far in the tail of the initial ensemble probability distribution. Experiments show that the method is successful if enough near-field observations are available. This makes it work best for a period after substantial deglaciation until the present when the number of sea level indicators is relatively high.

Description: Doppler wind lidars (DWLs) have increasingly been used over the last decade to derive the mean wind in the atmospheric boundary layer. DWLs allow the determination of wind vector profiles with high vertical resolution and provide an alternative to classic meteorological tower observations. They also receive signals from altitudes higher than a tower and can be set up flexibly in any power-supplied location. In this work, we address the question of whether and how wind gusts can be derived from DWL observations. The characterization of wind gusts is one central goal of the Field Experiment on Sub-Mesoscale Spatio-Temporal Variability in Lindenberg (FESSTVaL). Obtaining wind gusts from a DWL is not trivial because a monostatic DWL provides only a radial velocity per line of sight, i.e., only one component of a three-dimensional vector, and measurements in at least three linearly independent directions are required to derive the wind vector. Performing them sequentially limits the achievable time resolution, while wind gusts are short-lived phenomena. This study compares different DWL configurations in terms of their potential to derive wind gusts. For this purpose, we develop a new wind retrieval method that is applicable to different scanning configurations and various time resolutions. We test eight configurations with StreamLine DWL systems from HALO Photonics and evaluate gust peaks and mean wind over 10 min at 90 m a.g.l. against a sonic anemometer at the meteorological tower in Falkenberg, Germany. The best-performing configuration for retrieving wind gusts proves to be a fast continuous scanning mode (CSM) that completes a full observation cycle within 3.4 s. During this time interval, about 11 radial Doppler velocities are measured, which are then used to retrieve single gusts. The fast CSM configuration was successfully operated over a 3-month period in summer 2020. The CSM paired with our new retrieval technique provides gust peaks that compare well to classic sonic anemometer measurements from the meteorological tower.

Description: A challenge of an energy system that nowadays more strongly depends on wind power generation is the spatial and temporal variability in winds. Nocturnal low-level jets (NLLJs) are typical wind phenomena defined as a maximum in the vertical profile of the horizontal wind speed. A NLLJ has typical core heights of 50–500 m a.g.l. (above ground level), which is in the height range of most modern wind turbines. This study presents NLLJ analyses based on new observations from Doppler wind lidars. The aim is to characterize the temporal and spatial variability in NLLJs on the mesoscale and to quantify their impacts on wind power generation. The data were collected during the Field Experiment on Submesoscale Spatio-Temporal Variability (FESSTVaL) campaign from June to August 2020 in Lindenberg and Falkenberg (Germany), located at about 6 km from each other. Both sites have seen NLLJs in about 70 % of the nights with half of them lasting for more than 3 h. Events longer than 6 h occurred more often simultaneously at both sites than shorter events, indicating the mesoscale character of very long NLLJs. Very short NLLJs of less than 1 h occurred more often in Lindenberg than Falkenberg, indicating more local influences on the wind profile. We discussed different meteorological mechanisms for NLLJ formation and linked NLLJ occurrences to synoptic weather patterns. There were positive and negative impacts of NLLJs on wind power that we quantified based on the observational data. NLLJs increased the mean power production by up to 80 % and were responsible for about 25 % of the power potential during the campaign. However, the stronger shear in the rotor layer during NLLJs can also have negative impacts. The impacts of NLLJs on wind power production depended on the relative height between the wind turbine and the core of the NLLJ. For instance, the mean increase in the estimated power production during NLLJ events was about 30 % higher for a turbine at 135 m a.g.l. compared to one at 94 m a.g.l. Our results imply that long NLLJs have an overall stronger impact on the total power production, while short events are primarily relevant as drivers for power ramps.

Description: During the Late Pleistocene and Holocene retreat of paleo-ice sheets in North America and Europe, vast proglacial lakes existed along the land terminating margins. These proglacial lakes impacted ice sheet dynamics by imposing boundary conditions analogous to a marine terminating margin. Such lacustrine boundary conditions cause changes in the ice sheet geometry, stress balance and frontal ablation and therefore affect the mass balance of the entire ice sheet. Despite this, dynamically evolving proglacial lakes have rarely been considered in detail in ice sheet modeling endeavors. In this study, we describe the implementation of an adaptive lake boundary in the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM), which we call PISM-LakeCC. We test our model with a simplified glacial retreat setup of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS). By comparing the experiments with lakes to control runs with no lakes, we show that the presence of proglacial lakes locally enhances the ice flow, which leads to a lowering of the ice sheet surface. In some cases, this also results in an advance of the ice margin and the emergence of ice lobes. In the warming climate, increased melting on the lowered ice surface drives the glacial retreat. For the LIS, the presence of lakes triggers a process similar to marine ice sheet instability, which caused the collapse of the ice saddle over Hudson Bay. In the control experiments without lakes, Hudson Bay is still glaciated when the climate reaches present-day (PD) conditions. The results of our study demonstrate that glacio-lacustrine interactions play a significant role in the retreat of land terminating ice sheet margins.

Description: Ice rises and ice rumples are locally grounded features found in coastal Antarctica and are surrounded by otherwise freely floating ice shelves. An ice rise has an independent flow regime, whereas the flow regime of an ice rumple conforms to that of the ice shelf and merely slows the flow of ice. In both cases, local highs in the bathymetry are in contact with the ice shelf from below, thereby regulating the large-scale ice flow, with implications for the upstream continental grounding line position. This buttressing effect, paired with the suitability of ice rises as a climate archive, necessitates a better understanding of the transition between ice rise and ice rumple, their evolution in response to a change in sea level, and their dynamic interaction with the surrounding ice shelf. We investigate this behaviour using a three-dimensional full Stokes ice flow model with idealised ice rises and ice rumples. The simulations span end-member basal friction scenarios of almost stagnant and fully sliding ice at the ice–bed interface. We analyse the coupling with the surrounding ice shelf by comparing the deviations between the non-local full Stokes surface velocities and the local shallow ice approximation (SIA). Deviations are generally high at the ice divides and small on the lee sides. On the stoss side, where ice rise and ice shelf have opposing flow directions, deviations can be significant. Differences are negligible in the absence of basal sliding where the corresponding steady-state ice rise is larger and develops a fully independent flow regime that is well described by SIA. When sea level is increased, and a transition from ice rise to ice rumple is approached, the divide migration is more abrupt the higher the basal friction. In each scenario, the transition occurs after the stoss-side grounding line has moved over the bed high and is positioned on a retrograde slope. We identify a hysteretic response of ice rises and ice rumples to changes in sea level, with grounded area being larger in a sea-level-increase scenario than in a sea-level-decrease scenario. This hysteresis shows not only irreversibility following an equal increase and subsequent decrease in sea level but also that the perturbation history is important when the ice rise or ice rumple geometry is not known. The initial grounded area needs to be carefully considered, as this will determine the formation of either an ice rise or an ice rumple, thereby causing different buttressing effects.

Description: Ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic perimeter moderate ice discharge towards the ocean through buttressing. Ice-shelf evolution and integrity depend on the local surface accumulation, basal melting and on the spatially variable ice-shelf viscosity. These components of ice-shelf mass balance are often poorly constrained by observations and introduce uncertainties in ice-sheet projections. Isochronal radar stratigraphy is an observational archive for the atmospheric, oceanographic and ice-flow history of ice shelves. Here, we predict the stratigraphy of locally accumulated ice on ice shelves with a kinematic forward model for a given atmospheric and oceanographic scenario. This delineates the boundary between local meteoric ice (LMI) and continental meteoric ice (CMI). A large LMI to CMI ratio hereby marks ice shelves whose buttressing strength is more sensitive to changes in atmospheric precipitation patterns. A mismatch between the steady-state predictions of the kinematic forward model and observations from radar can highlight inconsistencies in the atmospheric and oceanographic input data or be an indicator for a transient ice-shelf history not accounted for in the model. We discuss pitfalls in numerical diffusion when calculating the age field and validate the kinematic model with the full Stokes ice-flow model Elmer/Ice. The Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf (East Antarctica) serves as a test case for this approach. There, we find a significant east–west gradient in the LMI / CMI ratio. The steady-state predictions concur with observations on larger spatial scales (〉10 km), but deviations on smaller scales are significant, e.g., because local surface accumulation patterns near the grounding zone are underestimated in Antarctic-wide estimates. Future studies can use these mismatches to optimize the input data or to pinpoint transient signatures in the ice-shelf history using the ever growing archive of radar observations of internal ice stratigraphy.

Description: Oceans play a major role on the exchange of carbon with the atmosphere and thereby on past climates with glacial/interglacial variations of the CO2 concentration. The melting of ice sheets during deglaciations lets the sea level rise which leads to the flooding of coastal land areas resulting in the transfer of terrestrial organic matter to the ocean. However, the consequences of such fluxes on the ocean biogeochemical cycle and uptake/release of CO2 are poorly constrained. Moreover, this potentially important exchange of carbon at the land-sea interface is not represented in most Earth System Models. We present here the implementation of terrestrial organic matter fluxes into the ocean at the transiently changing land-sea interface in the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) and investigate their effect on the biogeochemistry during the last deglaciation. Our results show that during the deglaciation, most of the terrestrial organic matter inputs to the ocean occurs during Meltwater Pulse 1a (between 15–14 ka) which leads to additional 21.2 GtC of terrestrial origin (mostly originating from wood and humus). Although this additional organic matter input is relatively small in comparison to the global ocean inventory (0.06 %) and thus doesn’t have an impact on the global CO2 flux, the terrestrial organic matter fluxes initiate oceanic outgassing at regional hotspots like in Indonesia for a few hundred years. Finally, sensitivity experiments highlight that terrestrial organic matter fluxes are the drivers of oceanic outgassing in flooded coastal regions during Meltwater Pulse 1a. Furthermore, the magnitude of outgassing is rather insensitive to higher carbon to nutrients ratios of the terrestrial organic matter. Our results provide a first estimate of the importance of terrestrial organic matter fluxes in a transient deglaciation simulation. Moreover, our model development is an important step towards a fully coupled carbon cycle in an Earth System Model applicable for simulations of glacial/interglacial cycles.

Description: Accurate subsurface velocity models are crucial for geological interpretations based on seismic depth images. Seismic reflection tomography is an effective iterative method to update and refine a preliminary velocity model for depth imaging. Based on residual move-out analysis of reflectors in common image point gathers an update of the velocity is estimated by a ray-based tomography. To stabilize the tomography, several preconditioning strategies exist. Most critical is the estimation of the depth error to account for the residual move-out of the reflector in the common image point gathers. Because the depth errors for many closely spaced image gathers must be picked, manual picking is extremely time-consuming, human biased, and not reproducible. Data-driven picking algorithms based on coherence or semblance analysis are widely used for hyperbolic or linear events. However, for complex-shaped depth events, pure data-driven picking is difficult. To overcome this, the warping method named Non-Rigid Matching is used to estimate a depth error displacement field. Warping is used, e.g., to merge photographic images or to match two seismic images from time-lapse data. By calculating the displacements between an offset to its neighbouring offset in the common image point domain, a locally smooth-shaped displacement field is defined for each data sample. Depending on the complexity of the subsurface, sample tracking through the displacement field along predefined horizons or on a simple regular grid yields discrete depth error values for the tomography. The application to a multi-channel seismic line across the Sunda subduction zone offshore Lombok island, Indonesia, illustrates the approach and documents the advantages of the method to estimate a detailed velocity structure in a complex tectonic regime. By incorporating the warping scheme into the reflection tomography, we demonstrate an increase in the velocity resolution and precision by improving the data-driven accuracy of depth error picks with arbitrary shapes. This approach offers the possibility to use the full capacities of tomography and further leads to more accurate interpretations of complex geological structures.

Description: Improved quantification techniques of natural sources is needed to explain variations in atmospheric methane. In polar regions, high uncertainties in current estimates of methane release from the seabed remain. We present two unique 10 and 3 months long time-series of bottom water measurements of physical and chemical parameters from two autonomous ocean observatories deployed at separate intense seabed methane seep sites (91 and 246 m depth) offshore Western Svalbard from 2015 to 2016. Results show high short term (100–1000 nmol L-1 within hours) and seasonal variation, as well as higher (2–7 times) methane concentrations compared to previous measurements. Rapid variability is explained by uneven distribution of seepage and changing ocean current directions. No overt influence of tidal hydrostatic pressure or water temperature variations on methane concentration was observed, but an observed negative correlation with temperature at the 246 site fits with hypothesized seasonal blocking of lateral methane pathways in the sediments. Negative correlation between bottom water methane concentration/variability and wind forcing, concomitant with signs of weaker water column stratification, indicates increased potential for methane release to the atmosphere in fall/winter. We highlight uncertainties in methane inventory estimates based on discrete water sampling and present new information about short- and long-term methane variability which can help constrain future estimates of seabed methane seepage.

Description: The skill of global ocean biogeochemical models, and the earth system models in which they are embedded, can be improved by systematic calibration of the parameter values against observations. However, such tuning is seldom undertaken as these models are computationally very expensive. Here we investigate the performance of DFO-LS, a local, derivative-free optimisation algorithm which has been designed for computationally expensive models with irregular model–data misfit landscapes typical of biogeochemical models. We use DFO-LS to calibrate six parameters of a relatively complex global ocean biogeochemical model (MOPS) against synthetic dissolved oxygen, phosphate and nitrate “observations” from a reference run of the same model with a known parameter configuration. The performance of DFO-LS is compared with that of CMA-ES, another derivative-free algorithm that was applied in a previous study to the same model in one of the first successful attempts at calibrating a global model of this complexity. We find that DFO-LS successfully recovers five of the six parameters in approximately 40 evaluations of the misfit function (each one requiring a 3000-year run of MOPS to equilibrium), while CMA-ES needs over 1200 evaluations. Moreover, DFO-LS reached a “baseline” misfit, defined by observational noise, in just 11–14 evaluations, whereas CMA-ES required approximately 340 evaluations. We also find that the performance of DFO-LS is not significantly affected by observational sparsity, however fewer parameters were successfully optimised in the presence of observational uncertainty. The results presented here suggest that DFO-LS is sufficiently inexpensive and robust to apply to the calibration of complex, global ocean biogeochemical models.

Description: Climate-relevant trace gas air-sea exchange exerts an important control on air quality and climate, especially in remote regions of the planet such as the Southern Ocean. It is clear that polar regions exhibit seasonal trends in productivity and biogeochemical cycling, but almost all of the measurements there are skewed to summer months. If we want to understand how the Southern Ocean effects the balance of climate through trace gas air-sea exchange, it is essential to expand our measurement database over greater temporal and spatial scales, including all seasons. Therefore, in this study, we report measured concentrations of dimethylsulphide (DMS, and related sulphur compounds) and isoprene in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean during the winter to understand the spatial and temporal distribution in comparison to current knowledge and climatological calculations for the Southern Ocean. The observations of isoprene are the first in the winter season in the Southern Ocean. We find that concentrations and fluxes of DMS and isoprene in the investigated area are generally lower than those presented or calculated in currently used climatologies and models. More data is urgently needed to better interpolate climatological values and validate process-oriented models, as well as to explore how finer measurement resolution, both spatially and temporally, can influence air-sea flux calculations.

Description: The Leeuwin Current flowing southward along West Australia is an important conduit for the poleward heat transport and interocean water exchange between the tropical and the subantarctic ocean areas. Its past development, and its relationship to Southern Ocean change and to Australian ecosystem response, however is largely unknown. We here reconstruct sea surface and thermocline temperatures and salinities from foraminiferal-based Mg/Ca and stable oxygen isotopes from offshore southwest and southeast Australia reflecting the Leeuwin Current dynamics over the last 60 kyrs. Its variability resembles the biomass burning development in Australasia from ~60–20 ka BP implying that climate-modulated changes related to the Leeuwin Current most likely affected Australian vegetational and fire regimes. In particular during ~60–43 ka BP, warmest thermocline temperatures point to a strongly developed Leeuwin Current during Antarctic cool periods when the Antarctic Circumpolar Current weakened. The pronounced centennial-scale variations in Leeuwin Current strength appear in line with the migrations of the Southern Hemisphere frontal system and are captured by prominent changes in the Australian megafauna biomass. We argue that the concerted action of a rapidly changing Leeuwin Current, the ecosystem response in Australia, and human interference since ~50 BP enhanced the ecological stress on the Australian megafauna until a tipping point was reached at ~43 ka BP, after which faunal recuperation no longer took place. While being weakest during the last glacial maximum, the deglacial Leeuwin Current intensified at times of poleward migrations of the Subtropical Front. During the Holocene, the thermocline off South Australia was considerably shallower compared to the short-term glacial and deglacial periods of Leeuwin Current intensification.

Description: We developed a new version of the Alfred Wegener Institute Climate Model (AWI-CM3), which has higher skills in representing the observed climatology and better computational efficiency than its predecessors. Its ocean component FESOM2 (Finite-volumE Sea ice-Ocean Model) has the multi-resolution functionality typical of unstructured-mesh models while still featuring a scalability and efficiency similar to regular-grid models. The atmospheric component OpenIFS (CY43R3) enables the use of the latest developments in the numerical-weather-prediction community in climate sciences. In this paper we describe the coupling of the model components and evaluate the model performance on a variable-resolution (25-125 km) ocean mesh and a 61 km atmosphere grid, which serves as a reference and starting point for other ongoing research activities with AWI-CM3. This includes the exploration of high and variable resolution and the development of a full Earth system model as well as the creation of a new sea ice prediction system. At this early development stage and with the given coarse to medium resolutions, the model already features above-CMIP6-average skills (where CMIP6 denotes Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6) in representing the climatology and competitive model throughput. Finally we identify remaining biases and suggest further improvements to be made to the model.

Description: Large amounts of methane (CH4) could be released as a result of the gradual or abrupt thawing of Arctic permafrost due to global warming. Once available, this potent greenhouse gas is emitted into the atmosphere or transported laterally into aquatic ecosystems via hydrologic connectivity at the surface or via groundwaters. While high northern latitudes contribute up to 5 % of total global CH4 emissions, the specific contribution of Arctic rivers and streams is largely unknown. We analyzed high-resolution continuous CH4 concentrations measured between 15 and 17 June 2019 (late freshet) in a ∼120 km transect of the Kolyma River in northeast Siberia. The average partial pressure of CH4 (pCH4) in tributaries (66.8–206.8 µatm) was 2–7 times higher than in the main river channel (28.3 µatm). In the main channel, CH4 was up to 1600 % supersaturated with respect to atmospheric equilibrium. Key sites along the riverbank and at tributary confluences accounted for 10 % of the navigated transect and had the highest pCH4 (41 ± 7 µatm) and CH4 emissions (0.03 ± 0.004 ) compared to other sites in the main channel, contributing between 14 % to 17 % of the total CH4 flux in the transect. These key sites were characterized by warm waters (T〉14.5 ∘C) and low specific conductivities (κ〈88 µS cm−1). The distribution of CH4 in the river could be linked statistically to T and κ of the water and to their proximity to the shore z, and these parameters served as predictors of CH4 concentrations in unsampled river areas. The abundance of CH4-consuming bacteria and CH4-producing archaea in the river was similar to those previously detected in nearby soils and was also strongly correlated to T and κ. These findings imply that the source of riverine CH4 is closely related with sites near land. The average total CH4 flux density in the river section was 0.02 ± 0.006 , equivalent to an annual CH4 flux of 1.24×107 g CH4 yr−1 emitted during a 146 d open water season. Our study highlights the importance of high-resolution continuous CH4 measurements in Arctic rivers for identifying spatial and temporal variations, as well as providing a glimpse of the magnitude of riverine CH4 emissions in the Arctic and their potential relevance to regional CH4 budgets.

Description: The Labrador Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean is one of the few regions globally where oxygen from the atmosphere can reach the deep ocean directly. This is the result of wintertime deep convection, which homogenizes the water column to a depth of up to 2000 m and brings deep water undersaturated in oxygen into contact with the atmosphere. In this study, we analyze how the intense oxygen uptake during Labrador Sea Water (LSW) formation affects the properties of the outflowing deep western boundary current, which ultimately feeds the upper part of the North Atlantic Deep Water layer in much of the Atlantic Ocean. Seasonal cycles of oxygen concentration, temperature, and salinity from a 2-year time series collected by sensors moored at 600 m nominal depth in the outflowing boundary current at 53∘ N show a cooling, freshening, and increase in oxygen content of the water flowing out of the basin between March and August. Analysis of Argo float data suggests that this is preceded by an increased input of LSW into the boundary current about 1 month earlier. This input is the result of newly ventilated LSW entering from the interior, as well as LSW formed directly within the boundary current. Together, these results imply that the southward export of newly formed LSW primarily occurs in the months following the onset of deep convection, from March to August, and that this direct LSW export route controls the seasonal oxygen increase in the outflow at 600 m depth. During the rest of the year, properties of the boundary current measured at 53∘ N resemble those of Irminger Water, which enters the basin with the boundary current from the Irminger Sea. The input of newly ventilated LSW increases the oxygen concentration from 298 µmol L−1 in January to a maximum of 306 µmol L−1 in April. As a result of this LSW input, an estimated (1.60 ± 0.42) × 1012 mol yr−1 of oxygen are added to the outflowing boundary current, mostly during spring and summer, equivalent to 50 % of the wintertime uptake from the atmosphere in the interior of the basin. The export of oxygen from the subpolar gyre associated with this direct southward pathway of LSW is estimated to supply 42 %–71 % of the oxygen consumed annually in the upper North Atlantic Deep Water layer in the Atlantic Ocean between the Equator and 50∘ N. Our results show that the formation of LSW is important for replenishing oxygen to the deep oceans, meaning that possible changes in its formation rate and ventilation due to climate change could have wide-reaching impacts on marine life.

Description: The consideration of marine biogeochemistry is essential for simulating the carbon cycle in an Earth system model. Here we present the implementation and evaluation of a marine biogeochemical model, Model of Oceanic Pelagic Stoichiometry (MOPS) in the Flexible Ocean and Climate Infrastructure (FOCI) climate model. FOCI-MOPS enables the simulation of marine biological processes, the marine carbon, nitrogen and oxygen cycles, air-sea gas exchange of CO2 and O2, and simulations with prescribed atmospheric CO2 or CO2 emissions. A series of experiments covering the historical period (1850–2014) were performed following the DECK (Diagnostic, Evaluation and Characterization of Klima) and CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6) protocols. Overall, modelled biogeochemical tracer distributions and fluxes, as well as transient evolution in surface air temperature, air-sea CO2 fluxes, and changes of ocean carbon and heat, are in good agreement with observations. Modelled inorganic and organic tracer distributions are quantitatively evaluated by statistically-derived metrics. Results of the FOCI-MOPS model, also including sea surface temperature, surface pH, oxygen (100–600 m), nitrate (0–100 m), and primary production, are within the range of other CMIP6 model results. Overall, the evaluation of FOCI-MOPS indicates its suitability for Earth climate system simulations

Description: Upwelling of nutrient-rich waters into the sunlit surface layer of the ocean supports high primary productivity in eastern boundary upwelling systems (EBUSs). However, subsurface waters contain not only macronutrients (N, P, Si) but also micronutrients, organic matter and seed microbial communities that may modify the response to macronutrient inputs via upwelling. These additional factors are often neglected when investigating upwelling impacts on surface ocean productivity. Here, we investigated how different components of upwelled water (macronutrients, organic nutrients and seed communities) drive the response of surface plankton communities to upwelling in the Peruvian coastal zone. Results from our short-term (10 d) study show that the most influential drivers in upwelled deep water are (1) the ratio of inorganic nutrients (NOx : PO) and (2) the microbial community present that can seed heterogeneity in phytoplankton succession and modify the stoichiometry of residual inorganic nutrients after phytoplankton blooms. Hence, this study suggests that phytoplankton succession after upwelling is modified by factors other than the physical supply of inorganic nutrients. This would likely affect trophic transfer and overall productivity in these highly fertile marine ecosystems.

Description: Mesoscale eddies modulate the ocean's physical, chemical, and biological properties. In cyclonic eddies (CEs), nutrient upwelling can stimulate primary production by phytoplankton. Yet, how this locally enhanced autotrophic production affects heterotrophy and consequently the metabolic balance between the synthesis and the consumption of dissolved organic matter (DOM) remains largely unknown. To fill this gap, we investigated the horizontal and vertical variability in auto- and heterotrophic microbial activity (biomass production and respiration) within a CE that formed off Mauritania and along the ∼ 900 km zonal corridor between Mauritania and the Cape Verde islands in the Eastern Tropical North Atlantic (ETNA). Our results show how the physical disturbances caused by the CE affected the biomass distribution of phyto- and bacterioplankton and their metabolic activities. The injection of nutrients into the sunlit surface resulted in enhanced autotrophic pico- and nanoplankton abundance and generally increased autotrophic activity as indicated by chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentration, primary production (PP), and extracellular release rates. However, the detailed eddy survey also revealed an uneven distribution of these variables with, for example, the highest Chl a concentrations and PP rates occurring near and just beyond the CE's periphery. The heterotrophic bacterial activity was similarly variable. Optode-based community respiration (CR), bacterial respiration (BR) estimates, and bacterial biomass production (BP) largely followed the trends of PP and Chl a. Thus, a submesoscale spatial mosaic of heterotrophic bacterial abundance and activities occurred within the CE that was closely related to variability in autotrophic production. Consistent with this, we found a significant positive correlation between concentrations of semi-labile dissolved organic carbon (SL-DOC; here the sum of dissolved hydrolysable amino acids and dissolved combined carbohydrates) and BR estimates. Extracellular release of carbon as indicated by primary production of dissolved organic carbon (PPDOC) was variable with depth and laterally and not always sufficient to compensate the bacterial carbon demand (BCD: BR + BP), with PPDOC accounting for between 28 % and 110 % of the BCD. Bacterial growth efficiency (BGE: BP / BCD) ranged between 1.7 % and 18.2 %. We estimated the metabolic state to establish whether the CE was a source or a sink of organic carbon. We showed that the CE carried a strong autotrophic signal in the core (PP  CR 〉 1). Our results suggest that submesoscale (0–10 km) processes lead to highly variable metabolic activities in both photoautotrophic and heterotrophic microorganisms. Overall, we revealed that the CEs not only trap and transport coastal nutrients and organic carbon to the open ocean but also stimulate phytoplankton growth, generating freshly produced organic matter during westward propagation. This drives heterotrophic processes and may contribute to the previously observed net heterotrophy in open Atlantic surface waters.

Description: Methane (CH4) is a climate-relevant atmospheric trace gas which is emitted to the atmosphere from coastal areas such as the Baltic Sea. The oceanic CH4 emission estimates are still associated with a high degree of uncertainty partly because the temporal and spatial variability in the CH4 distribution in the ocean surface layer is usually not known. In order to determine the small-scale variability in dissolved CH4 we set up a purge and trap system with a significantly improved precision for the CH4 concentration measurements compared to static headspace equilibration measurements. We measured the distribution of dissolved CH4 in the water column of the western Kiel Bight and Eckernförde Bay in June and September 2018. The top 1 m was sampled in high resolution to determine potential small-scale CH4 concentration gradients within the mixed layer. CH4 concentrations throughout the water column of the western Kiel Bight and Eckernförde Bay were generally higher in September than in June. The increase in the CH4 concentrations in the bottom water was accompanied by a strong decrease in O2 concentrations which led to anoxic conditions favourable for microbial CH4 production in September. In summer 2018, northwestern Europe experienced a pronounced heatwave. However, we found no relationship between the anomalies of water temperature and excess CH4 in both the surface and the bottom layer at the site of the Boknis Eck Time Series Station (Eckernförde Bay). Therefore, the 2018 European heatwave most likely did not affect the observed increase in the CH4 concentrations in the western Kiel Bight from June to September 2018. The high-resolution measurements of the CH4 concentrations in the upper 1 m of the water column were highly variable and showed no uniform decreasing or increasing gradients with water depth. Overall, our results show that the CH4 distribution in the water column of the western Kiel Bight and Eckernförde Bay is strongly affected by both large-scale temporal (i.e. seasonal) and small-scale spatial variabilities which need to be considered when quantifying the exchange of CH4 across the ocean–atmosphere interface.

Description: The Agulhas Current (AC) off the southern tip of Africa is one of the strongest western boundary currents and a crucial choke point of inter-ocean heat and salt exchange between the Indian Ocean and the southern Atlantic Ocean. However, large uncertainties remain concerning the sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity (SSS) variability in the AC region and their driving mechanisms over longer timescales, due to only short observational datasets being available and the highly dynamic nature of the region. Here, we present an annual coral skeletal Sr/Ca composite record paired with an established composite oxygen isotope record from Ifaty and Tulear reefs in southwestern Madagascar to obtain a 334-year (1661-1995) reconstruction of δ18Oseawater changes related to surface salinity variability in the wider Agulhas Current region. Our new annual δ18Oseawater composite record from Ifaty traces surface salinity of the southern Mozambique Channel and AC core region from the SODA reanalysis between 1958 and 1995. δ18Oseawater appears to be mainly driven by large-scale wind forcing in the southern Indian Ocean on interannual to decadal timescales. The δ18Oseawater and SST at Ifaty show characteristic interannual variability of between 2 and 4 years and interdecadal variability of 8 to 16 years, coherent with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) records. Lagged correlations with the multivariate ENSO index reveals a 1-2-year lag of δ18Oseawater and salinity at Ifaty and the AC region, suggesting that propagation of anomalies by ocean Rossby waves may contribute to salinity changes in the wider southwestern Indian Ocean. The δ18Oseawater and SST reconstructions at Ifaty reveal the highest interannual variability during the Little Ice Age, especially around 1700 CE, which is in agreement with other Indo-Pacific coral studies. Our study demonstrates the huge potential to unlock past interannual and decadal changes in surface ocean hydrology and ocean transport dynamics from coral δ18Oseawater beyond the short instrumental record.

Description: Surfactants can hamper gas exchange by up to 50 % in coastal seas, however, their small-scale temporal and spatial dynamics are poorly constrained. This study investigated possible biogenic sources of surfactants in the sea surface microlayer (SML) and the underlying water at a coastal Baltic Sea site. To relate surfactant dynamics to biogenic production, we conducted two field studies (June and September 2018) and focused on amino acids and carbohydrates as the main components of organic matter derived from phytoplankton. The composition of the biochemicals provided furthermore insights into microbial degradation dynamics and was complemented by flow-cytometry-based community analysis. In total, 76 samples were collected within an area of approx. 50 km2 allowing for high spatial resolution. Moreover, morning and afternoon sampling enabled us to also investigate diel cycles. Our results reveal that surfactant concentrations were tightly coupled to the abundance of nano-phytoplankton and generally higher in September than in June, when cell abundance was three-times higher. Surfactant concentration in June was best explained by the combined effect of the particulate fraction of the non-essential amino acid serine, the concentration of particulate combined carbohydrates (PCHO), and dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Surfactant and PCHO concentrations were significantly enriched in the SML and followed a pronounced diel cycle, possibly linked to microbial- and/or photo-processing. In contrast to June, the surfactant pool in September correlated to a diverse mixture of semi-labile organic matter components, represented best by dissolved glucose and the essential amino acid isoleucine. We conclude that the surfactant pool in surface seawater is mainly composed of organic matter components that resist rapid microbial degradation. Elevated surfactant concentrations are triggered by the release of fresh organic matter. While the effect of the resistant but less surface-active stock is potentially longer-lasting, the additive effect of labile, highly surface-active agents on gas exchange may diminish on short timescales.

Description: As the boundary interface between the atmosphere and ocean, the sea-surface microlayer (SML) plays a significant role in the biogeochemical cycles of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and macronutrients in marine environments. In our study, the optical properties of DOM were compared between the sub-surface water (SSW) and the SML during spring, summer and winter in the East China Sea (ECS) and the Yellow Sea (YS). In addition, photoexposure experiments were designed to compare photochemical degradation processes of DOM between the SML and the SSW. Chromophoric DOM (CDOM), fluorescent DOM, dissolved organic carbon, chlorophyll a (Chl a), picoplankton, nutrients and bacteria were frequently enriched in the SML. The enrichment factors (EFs) of tryptophan-like component 4 were significantly higher than other fluorescence components; the longer wavelength absorption values of CDOM showed higher EFs in the SML, and a more significant relationship between CDOM and Chl a in the SML, indicating that autochthonous DOM was more strongly enriched in the SML than the terrestrial DOM. Higher EFs were generally observed in the SML in the off-shore regions than in the coastal regions, and CDOM in the SML was photobleached more after relatively strong irradiation, as also indicated by the lower percentages of humic-like DOM and lower specific UV absorbance values (SUVA254) in the SML than the SSW. Compared to the SSW, the elevated nutrients may stimulate phytoplankton growth, biological activity and then production of abundant fresh autochthonous DOM in the SML. Our results revealed a new enrichment model for exploring the air–sea interface environment, which can explain the more autochthonous properties of DOM in the SML than the SSW.

Description: Temperature extremes not only directly affect the marine environment and ecosystems but also indirectly influence hydrodynamics and marine life. In this study, the role of heat wave events in the occurrence and persistence of thermal stratification was analysed by simulating the water temperature of the North Sea from 2011 to 2018 using a fully coupled hydrodynamic and wave model within the framework of the Geesthacht Coupled cOAstal model SysTem (GCOAST). The model results were assessed against reprocessed satellite data and in situ observations from field campaigns and fixed Marine Environmental Monitoring Network (MARNET) stations. To quantify the degree of stratification, the potential energy anomaly throughout the water column was calculated. The air temperatures and potential energy anomalies in the North Sea (excluding the Norwegian Trench and the area south of 54∘ N) were linearly correlated. Different from the northern North Sea, where the water column is stratified in the warm season each year, the southern North Sea is seasonally stratified in years when a heat wave occurs. The influences of heat waves on the occurrence of summer stratification in the southern North Sea are mainly in the form of two aspects, i.e. a rapid rise in sea surface temperature at the early stage of the heat wave period and a higher water temperature during summer than the multiyear mean. Another factor that enhances the thermal stratification in summer is the memory of the water column to cold spells earlier in the year. Differences between the seasonally stratified northern North Sea and the heat wave-induced stratified southern North Sea were ultimately attributed to changes in water depth.

Description: The Indian Ocean is coupled to atmospheric dynamics and chemical composition via several unique mechanisms, such as the seasonally varying monsoon circulation. During the winter monsoon season, high pollution levels are regularly observed over the entire northern Indian Ocean, while during the summer monsoon, clean air dominates the atmospheric composition, leading to distinct chemical regimes. The changing atmospheric composition over the Indian Ocean can interact with oceanic biogeochemical cycles and impact marine ecosystems, resulting in potential climate feedbacks. Here, we review current progress in detecting and understanding atmospheric gas-phase composition over the Indian Ocean and its local and global impacts. The review considers results from recent Indian Ocean ship campaigns, satellite measurements, station data, and information on continental and oceanic trace gas emissions. The distribution of all major pollutants and greenhouse gases shows pronounced differences between the landmass source regions and the Indian Ocean, with strong gradients over the coastal areas. Surface pollution and ozone are highest during the winter monsoon over the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea coastal waters due to air mass advection from the Indo-Gangetic Plain and continental outflow from Southeast Asia. We observe, however, that unusual types of wind patterns can lead to pronounced deviations of the typical trace gas distributions. For example, the ozone distribution maxima shift to different regions under wind scenarios that differ from the regular seasonal transport patterns. The distribution of greenhouse gases over the Indian Ocean shows many similarities when compared to the pollution fields, but also some differences of the latitudinal and seasonal variations resulting from their long lifetimes and biogenic sources. Mixing ratios of greenhouse gases such as methane show positive trends over the Indian Ocean, but long-term changes in pollution and ozone due to changing emissions and transport patterns require further investigation. Although we know that changing atmospheric composition and perturbations within the Indian Ocean affect each other, the impacts of atmospheric pollution on oceanic biogeochemistry and trace gas cycling are severely understudied. We highlight potential mechanisms, future research topics, and observational requirements that need to be explored in order to fully understand such interactions and feedbacks in the Indian Ocean region.

Description: The North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) is a crucial component of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and is therefore an important factor of the climate system. In order to estimate the mean relative contributions, sources, and pathways of the NADW at the southern exit of the Labrador Sea, a Lagrangian particle experiment is performed. The particles were seeded according to the strength of the velocity field along the 53∘ N section and traced 40 years backward in time in the three-dimensional velocity and hydrography field. The resulting transport pathways, their sources and corresponding transit timescales were inferred. Our experiment shows that, of the 30.1 Sv of NADW passing 53∘ N on average, the majority of this water is associated with a diapycnal mass flux without contact to the atmosphere, accounting for 14.3 Sv (48 %), where 6.2 Sv originate from the Labrador Sea, compared to 4.7 Sv from the Irminger Sea. The second-largest contribution originates from the mixed layer with 7.2 Sv (24 %), where the Labrador Sea contribution (5.9 Sv) dominates over the Irminger Sea contribution (1.0 Sv). Another 5.7 Sv (19 %) of NADW crosses the Greenland–Scotland Ridge within the NADW density class, where about two-thirds pass the Denmark Strait, while one-third crosses the Iceland–Scotland Ridge. The NADW exported at 53∘ N is hence dominated by entrainment through the diapycnal mass flux and mixed-layer origin in the Labrador Sea.

Description: Using observational data, satellite altimeters, and reanalysis model products, we have investigated eddy-induced seawater anomalies and heat and salt transport in the northeastern tropical Pacific Ocean. An eddy detection algorithm (EDA) was used to identify eddy formation at the Mexican Tehuantepec Gulf (TT) in July 2018 during an unusually strong summer wind event. The eddy separated from the coast with a mean translation velocity of 11 cm s−1 and a mean radius of 115 km and traveled 2050–2400 km westwards off the Central American coast, where it was followed at approx 114∘ W and 11∘ N for oceanographic observation between April and May 2019. The in situ observations show that the major eddy impacts are restricted to the upper 300 m of the water column and are traceable down to 1500 m water depth. In the eddy core at 92 m water depth an extreme positive temperature anomaly of 8.2 ∘C, a negative salinity anomaly of −0.78 psu, a positive fluorescence anomaly of +0.8 mg m−3, and a positive dissolved oxygen concentration anomaly of 137 µmol kg−1 are observed. Compared with annual climatological averages in 2018, the water trapped within the eddy is estimated to transport an average positive westward zonal heat anomaly of 85×1012 W and an average westward negative salt anomaly of  kg s−1. The heat transport is the equivalent of 1 % of the total annual zonal eddy-induced heat transport at this latitude in the Pacific Ocean. Understanding the dynamics of long-lived mesoscale eddies that may reach the seafloor in this region of the Pacific Ocean is especially important in light of potential deep-sea mining activities that are being targeted on this area.

Description: The availability of iron (Fe) and phosphorus (P) has been shown to be a key factor regulating rates of nitrogen fixation in the western subtropical Pacific. However, the relative importance of Fe and P at finer spatial scales between the northern South China Sea (NSCS) and the western boundary of the North Pacific is poorly constrained. Furthermore, nutrient limitation of specific diazotroph types has not yet been assessed. Here we investigated these unknowns by (i) carrying out measurements of finer-scale spatial variabilities in N2 fixation rates and diazotroph nifH gene abundances throughout these regions and (ii) conducting eight additional Fe and phosphate addition bioassay experiments where both changes in N2 fixation rates and the nifH gene abundances of specific diazotrophs were measured. Overall, nitrogen fixation rates and nifH gene abundances were lower in the NSCS than around the Luzon Strait and the western North Pacific. The nutrient addition bioassay experiments demonstrated that N2 fixation rates in the central NSCS were co-limited by Fe and P, whereas at the western boundary of the North Pacific they were P-limited. Changes in the abundances of nifH in response to nutrient addition varied in how well they correlated with changes in N2 fixation rates, and in six out of eight experiments the largest responses in nifH gene abundances were dominated by either Trichodesmium or UCYN-B (unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacteria group B). In general, nutrient addition had a relatively restricted impact on the composition of the six phylotypes that we surveyed apart from on UCYN-B. This unicellular cyanobacterium group showed increased contribution to the total nifH gene abundance following P addition at sites where N2 fixation rates were P-limited. Our study provides comprehensive evidence of nutrient controls on N2 fixation biogeography in the margin of the western North Pacific. Future research that more accurately constrains nutrient supply rates to this region would be beneficial for resolving what controls diazotroph community structure.

Description: Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate is critical to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe and synthesize datasets and methodology to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 emissions (E-FOS) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land-use change (E-LUC), mainly deforestation, are based on land use and land-use change data and bookkeeping models. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly, and its growth rate (G(ATM)) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The ocean CO2 sink (S-OCEAN) is estimated with global ocean biogeochemistry models and observation-based data products. The terrestrial CO2 sink (S-LAND) is estimated with dynamic global vegetation models. The resulting carbon budget imbalance (B-IM), the difference between the estimated total emissions and the estimated changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere, is a measure of imperfect data and understanding of the contemporary carbon cycle. All uncertainties are reported as +/- 1 sigma. For the first time, an approach is shown to reconcile the difference in our E-LUC estimate with the one from national greenhouse gas inventories, supporting the assessment of collective countries' climate progress. For the year 2020, E-FOS declined by 5.4 % relative to 2019, with fossil emissions at 9.5 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1) (9.3 +/- 0.5 GtC yr(-1) when the cement carbonation sink is included), and E-LUC was 0.9 +/- 0.7 GtC yr(-1), for a total anthropogenic CO2 emission of 10.2 +/- 0.8 GtC yr(-1) (37.4 +/- 2.9 GtCO(2)). Also, for 2020, G(ATM) was 5.0 +/- 0.2 GtC yr-1 (2.4 +/- 0.1 ppm yr(-1)), S-OCEAN was 3.0 +/- 0.4 GtC yr(-1), and S-LAND was 2.9 +/- 1 GtC yr(-1), with a B-IM of -0.8 GtC yr(-1). The global atmospheric CO2 concentration averaged over 2020 reached 412.45 +/- 0.1 ppm. Preliminary data for 2021 suggest a rebound in E-FOS relative to 2020 of +4.8 % (4.2 % to 5.4 %) globally. Overall, the mean and trend in the components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period 1959-2020, but discrepancies of up to 1 GtC yr(-1) persist for the representation of annual to semi-decadal variability in CO2 fluxes. Comparison of estimates from multiple approaches and observations shows (1) a persistent large uncertainty in the estimate of land-use changes emissions, (2) a low agreement between the different methods on the magnitude of the land CO2 flux in the northern extra-tropics, and (3) a discrepancy between the different methods on the strength of the ocean sink over the last decade. This living data update documents changes in the methods and datasets used in this new global carbon budget and the progress in understanding of the global carbon cycle compared with previous publications of this dataset (Friedlingstein et al., 2020, 2019; Le Quere et al., 2018b, a, 2016, 2015b, a, 2014, 2013). The data presented in this work are available at (Friedlingstein et al., 2021).

Description: Observations of the eastern subpolar North Atlantic in the 2010s show exceptional freshening and cooling of the upper ocean, peaking in 2016 with the lowest salinities recorded for 120 years. Published theories for the mechanisms driving the freshening include: reduced transport of saltier, warmer surface waters northwards from the subtropics associated with reduced meridional overturning; shifts in the pathways of fresher, cooler surface water from the Labrador Sea driven by changing patterns of wind stress; and the eastward expansion of the subpolar gyre. Using output from a high-resolution hindcast model simulation, we propose that the primary cause of the exceptional freshening and cooling is reduced surface heat loss in the Labrador Sea. Tracking virtual fluid particles in the model backwards from the eastern subpolar North Atlantic between 1990 and 2020 shows the major cause of the freshening and cooling to be an increased outflow of relatively fresh and cold surface waters from the Labrador Sea; with a minor contribution from reduced transport of warmer, saltier surface water northward from the subtropics. The cooling, but not the freshening, produced by these changing proportions of waters of subpolar and subtropical origin is mitigated by reduced along-track heat loss to the atmosphere in the North Atlantic Current. We analyse modelled boundary exchanges and water mass transformation in the Labrador Sea to show that since 2000, while inflows of lighter surface waters remain steady, the increasing output of these waters is due to reduced surface heat loss in the Labrador Sea beginning in the early 2000s. Tracking particles further upstream reveals that the primary source of the increased volume of lighter water transported out of the Labrador Sea is increased recirculation of water, and therefore longer residence times, in the upper 500–1000 m of the subpolar gyre.

Description: Enhanced summer insolation over North Africa induced a monsoon precipitation increase during the mid-Holocene, about 6000 years ago, and led to a widespread expansion of lakes and wetlands in the present-day Sahara. This expansion of lakes and wetlands is documented in paleoenvironmental sediment records, but the spatially sparse and often discontinuous sediment records provide only a fragmentary picture. Previous simulation studies prescribed either a small lake and wetland extent from reconstructions or focused on documented mega-lakes only to investigate their effect on the mid-Holocene climate. In contrast to these studies, we investigate the possible range of mid-Holocene precipitation changes in response to a small-lake extent and a potential maximum lake and wetland extent. Our study shows that during the summer monsoon season, the African rain belt is shifted about 2 to 7∘ farther north in simulations with a maximum lake or wetland extent than in simulations with a small lake extent. This northward extent is caused by a stronger and prolonged monsoon rainfall season over North Africa which is associated with an increased monsoon precipitation over the southern Sahara and an increased precipitation from tropical plumes over the northwestern Sahara. Replacing lakes with vegetated wetlands causes an enhanced precipitation increase, which is likely due to the high surface roughness of the wetlands. A moisture budget analysis reveals that both lakes and wetlands cause a local precipitation increase not only by enhanced evaporation but also by a stronger inland moisture transport and local moisture recycling to the south of Lake Chad and the west Saharan lakes. Analysis of the dynamic response shows that lakes and wetlands cause a circulation response inverse to the one associated with the Saharan heat low. Depending on the latitudinal position of the lakes and wetlands, they predominantly cause a northward shift or a decay of the African Easterly Jet. These results indicate that the latitudinal position of the lakes and wetlands strongly affects the northward extension of the African summer monsoon.

Description: Southern hemispheric sea-ice impacts ocean circulation and the carbon exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean. Sea-ice is therefore one of the key processes in past and future climate change and variability. As climate models are the only tool available to project future climate change, it is important to assess their performance against observations for a range of different climate states. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ∼21 000 years ago) represents an interesting target as it is a relatively well-documented period with climatic conditions very different from preindustrial conditions. Here, we analyze the LGM seasonal Southern Ocean sea-ice cover as simulated in numerical simulations as part of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) phases 3 and 4. We compare the model outputs to a recently updated compilation of LGM seasonal Southern Ocean sea-ice cover and summer sea surface temperature (SST) to assess the most likely LGM Southern Ocean state. Simulations and paleo-proxy records suggest a fairly well-constrained glacial winter sea-ice edge between 50.5 and 51∘ S. However, the spread in simulated glacial summer sea-ice is wide, ranging from almost ice-free conditions to a sea-ice edge reaching 53∘ S. Combining model outputs and proxy data, we estimate a likely LGM summer sea-ice edge between 61 and 62∘ S and a mean summer sea-ice extent of 14–15×106 km2, which is ∼20 %–30 % larger than previous estimates. These estimates point to a higher seasonality of southern hemispheric sea-ice during the LGM than today. We also analyze the main processes defining the summer sea-ice edge within each of the models. We find that summer sea-ice cover is mainly defined by thermodynamic effects in some models, while the sea-ice edge is defined by the position of Southern Ocean upwelling in others. For models included in both PMIP3 and PMIP4, this thermodynamic or dynamic control on sea-ice is consistent across both experiments. Finally, we find that the impact of changes in large-scale ocean circulation on summer sea-ice within a single model is smaller than the natural range of summer sea-ice cover across the models considered here. This indicates that care must be taken when using a single model to reconstruct past climate regimes.

Description: Transparent exopolymer particles (TEPs) exhibit the properties of gels and are ubiquitously found in the world oceans. TEPs may enter the atmosphere as part of sea-spray aerosol. Here, we report number concentrations of TEPs with a diameter 〉 4.5 µm, hence covering a part of the supermicron particle range, in ambient aerosol and cloud water samples from the tropical Atlantic Ocean as well as in generated aerosol particles using a plunging waterfall tank that was filled with the ambient seawater. The ambient TEP concentrations ranged between 7×102 and 3×104 #TEP m−3 in the aerosol particles and correlations with sodium (Na+) and calcium (Ca2+) (R2=0.5) suggested some contribution via bubble bursting. Cloud water TEP concentrations were between 4×106 and 9×106 #TEP L−1 and, according to the measured cloud liquid water content, corresponding to equivalent air concentrations of 2–4×103 #TEP m−3. Based on Na+ concentrations in seawater and in the atmosphere, the enrichment factors for TEPs in the atmosphere were calculated. The tank-generated TEPs were enriched by a factor of 50 compared with seawater and, therefore, in-line with published enrichment factors for supermicron organic matter in general and TEPs specifically. TEP enrichment in the ambient atmosphere was on average 1×103 in cloud water and 9×103 in ambient aerosol particles and therefore about two orders of magnitude higher than the corresponding enrichment from the tank study. Such high enrichment of supermicron particulate organic constituents in the atmosphere is uncommon and we propose that atmospheric TEP concentrations resulted from a combination of enrichment during bubble bursting transfer from the ocean and a secondary TEP in-situ formation in atmospheric phases. Abiotic in-situ formation might have occurred from aqueous reactions of dissolved organic precursors that were present in particle and cloud water samples, whereas biotic formation involves bacteria, which were abundant in the cloud water samples. The ambient TEP number concentrations were two orders of magnitude higher than recently reported ice nucleating particle (INP) concentrations measured at the same location. As TEPs likely possess good properties to act as INPs, in future experiments it is worth studying if a certain part of TEPs contributes a fraction of the biogenic INP population.

Description: Vision in the deep sea is acquiring increasing interest from many fields as the deep seafloor represents the largest surface portion onEarth. Unlike common shallow underwater imaging, deep sea imaging requires artificial lighting to illuminate the scene in perpetualdarkness. Deep sea images suffer from degradation caused by scattering, attenuation and effects of artificial light sources and havea very different appearance to images in shallow water or on land. This impairs transferring current vision methods to deep seaapplications. Development of adequate algorithms requires some data with ground truth in order to evaluate the methods. However,it is practically impossible to capture a deep sea scene also without water or artificial lighting effects. This situation impairs progressin deep sea vision research, where already synthesized images with ground truth could be a good solution. Most current methodseither render a virtual 3D model, or use atmospheric image formation models to convert real world scenes to appear as in shallowwater appearance illuminated by sunlight. Currently, there is a lack of image datasets dedicated to deep sea vision evaluation. Thispaper introduces a pipeline to synthesize deep sea images using existing real world RGB-D benchmarks, and exemplarily generatesthe deep sea twin datasets for the well known Middlebury stereo benchmarks. They can be used both for testing underwater stereomatching methods and for training and evaluating underwater image processing algorithms. This work aims towards establishingan image benchmark, which is intended particularly for deep sea vision developments.

Description: Based on the Baltic Earth Assessment Reports of this thematic issue in Earth System Dynamics and recent peer-reviewed literature, current knowledge of the effects of global warming on past and future changes in climate of the Baltic Sea region is summarised and assessed. The study is an update of the Second Assessment of Climate Change (BACC II) published in 2015 and focuses on the atmosphere, land, cryosphere, ocean, sediments, and the terrestrial and marine biosphere. Based on the summaries of the recent knowledge gained in palaeo-, historical, and future regional climate research, we find that the main conclusions from earlier assessments still remain valid. However, new long-term, homogenous observational records, for example, for Scandinavian glacier inventories, sea-level-driven saltwater inflows, so-called Major Baltic Inflows, and phytoplankton species distribution, and new scenario simulations with improved models, for example, for glaciers, lake ice, and marine food web, have become available. In many cases, uncertainties can now be better estimated than before because more models were included in the ensembles, especially for the Baltic Sea. With the help of coupled models, feedbacks between several components of the Earth system have been studied, and multiple driver studies were performed, e.g. projections of the food web that include fisheries, eutrophication, and climate change. New datasets and projections have led to a revised understanding of changes in some variables such as salinity. Furthermore, it has become evident that natural variability, in particular for the ocean on multidecadal timescales, is greater than previously estimated, challenging our ability to detect observed and projected changes in climate. In this context, the first palaeoclimate simulations regionalised for the Baltic Sea region are instructive. Hence, estimated uncertainties for the projections of many variables increased. In addition to the well-known influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation, it was found that also other low-frequency modes of internal variability, such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability, have profound effects on the climate of the Baltic Sea region. Challenges were also identified, such as the systematic discrepancy between future cloudiness trends in global and regional models and the difficulty of confidently attributing large observed changes in marine ecosystems to climate change. Finally, we compare our results with other coastal sea assessments, such as the North Sea Region Climate Change Assessment (NOSCCA), and find that the effects of climate change on the Baltic Sea differ from those on the North Sea, since Baltic Sea oceanography and ecosystems are very different from other coastal seas such as the North Sea. While the North Sea dynamics are dominated by tides, the Baltic Sea is characterised by brackish water, a perennial vertical stratification in the southern subbasins, and a seasonal sea ice cover in the northern subbasins.

Description: The key processes driving the air–sea CO2 fluxes in the western tropical Atlantic (WTA) in winter are poorly known. WTA is a highly dynamic oceanic region, expected to have a dominant role in the variability in CO2 air–sea fluxes. In early 2020 (February), this region was the site of a large in situ survey and studied in wider context through satellite measurements. The North Brazil Current (NBC) flows northward along the coast of South America, retroflects close to 8∘ N and pinches off the world's largest eddies, the NBC rings. The rings are formed to the north of the Amazon River mouth when freshwater discharge is still significant in winter (a time period of relatively low run-off). We show that in February 2020, the region (5–16∘ N, 50–59∘ W) is a CO2 sink from the atmosphere to the ocean (−1.7 Tg C per month), a factor of 10 greater than previously estimated. The spatial distribution of CO2 fugacity is strongly influenced by eddies south of 12∘ N. During the campaign, a nutrient-rich freshwater plume from the Amazon River is entrained by a ring from the shelf up to 12∘ N leading to high phytoplankton concentration and significant carbon drawdown (∼20 % of the total sink). In trapping equatorial waters, NBC rings are a small source of CO2. The less variable North Atlantic subtropical water extends from 12∘ N northward and represents ∼60 % of the total sink due to the lower temperature associated with winter cooling and strong winds. Our results, in identifying the key processes influencing the air–sea CO2 flux in the WTA, highlight the role of eddy interactions with the Amazon River plume. It sheds light on how a lack of data impeded a correct assessment of the flux in the past, as well as on the necessity of taking into account features at meso- and small scales.

Description: Statistical climate reconstruction techniques are fundamental tools to study past climate variability from fossil proxy data. In particular, the methods based on probability density functions (or PDFs) can be used in various environments and with different climate proxies because they rely on elementary calibration data (i.e. modern geolocalised presence data). However, the difficulty of accessing and curating these calibration data and the complexity of interpreting probabilistic results have often limited their use in palaeoclimatological studies. Here, I introduce a new R package (crestr) to apply the PDF-based method CREST (Climate REconstruction SofTware) on diverse palaeoecological datasets and address these problems. crestr includes a globally curated calibration dataset for six common climate proxies (i.e. plants, beetles, chironomids, rodents, foraminifera, and dinoflagellate cysts) associated with an extensive range of climate variables (20 terrestrial and 19 marine variables) that enables its use in most terrestrial and marine environments. Private data collections can also be used instead of, or in combination with, the provided calibration dataset. The package includes a suite of graphical diagnostic tools to represent the data at each step of the reconstruction process and provide insights into the effect of the different modelling assumptions and external factors that underlie a reconstruction. With this R package, the CREST method can now be used in a scriptable environment and thus be more easily integrated with existing workflows. It is hoped that crestr will be used to produce the much-needed quantified climate reconstructions from the many regions where they are currently lacking, despite the availability of suitable fossil records. To support this development, the use of the package is illustrated with a step-by-step replication of a 790 000-year-long mean annual temperature reconstruction based on a pollen record from southeastern Africa.

Description: The stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet under global warming is governed by a number of dynamic processes and interacting feedback mechanisms in the ice sheet, atmosphere and solid Earth. Here we study the long-term effects due to the interplay of the competing melt–elevation and glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) feedbacks for different temperature step forcing experiments with a coupled ice-sheet and solid-Earth model. Our model results show that for warming levels above 2 ∘C, Greenland could become essentially ice-free within several millennia, mainly as a result of surface melting and acceleration of ice flow. These ice losses are mitigated, however, in some cases with strong GIA feedback even promoting an incomplete recovery of the Greenland ice volume. We further explore the full-factorial parameter space determining the relative strengths of the two feedbacks: our findings suggest distinct dynamic regimes of the Greenland Ice Sheets on the route to destabilization under global warming – from incomplete recovery, via quasi-periodic oscillations in ice volume to ice-sheet collapse. In the incomplete recovery regime, the initial ice loss due to warming is essentially reversed within 50 000 years, and the ice volume stabilizes at 61 %–93 % of the present-day volume. For certain combinations of temperature increase, atmospheric lapse rate and mantle viscosity, the interaction of the GIA feedback and the melt–elevation feedback leads to self-sustained, long-term oscillations in ice-sheet volume with oscillation periods between 74 000 and over 300 000 years and oscillation amplitudes between 15 %–70 % of present-day ice volume. This oscillatory regime reveals a possible mode of internal climatic variability in the Earth system on timescales on the order of 100 000 years that may be excited by or synchronized with orbital forcing or interact with glacial cycles and other slow modes of variability. Our findings are not meant as scenario-based near-term projections of ice losses but rather providing insight into of the feedback loops governing the “deep future” and, thus, long-term resilience of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Description: Here we describe the LegacyPollen 1.0, a dataset of 2831 fossil pollen records with metadata, a harmonized taxonomy, and standardized chronologies. A total of 1032 records originate from North America, 1075 from Europe, 488 from Asia, 150 from Latin America, 54 from Africa, and 32 from the Indo-Pacific. The pollen data cover the late Quaternary (mostly the Holocene). The original 10 110 pollen taxa names (including variations in the notations) were harmonized to 1002 terrestrial taxa (including Cyperaceae), with woody taxa and major herbaceous taxa harmonized to genus level and other herbaceous taxa to family level. The dataset is valuable for synthesis studies of, for example, taxa areal changes, vegetation dynamics, human impacts (e.g., deforestation), and climate change at global or continental scales. The harmonized pollen and metadata as well as the harmonization table are available from PANGAEA (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.929773; Herzschuh et al., 2021). R code for the harmonization is provided at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5910972; Herzschuh et al., 2022) so that datasets at a customized harmonization level can be easily established.

Description: Three time-slice carbon cycle simulations for the last glacial maximum (LGM) constrained by the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and the increase in the mean concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon in the deep ocean were carried out with a fully coupled comprehensive climate model (the Community Earth System Model version 1.2). The three modelled LGM ocean states yielded different physical features in response to artificial freshwater forcing, and, depending on the physical states, suitable amounts of carbon and alkalinity were added to the ocean to satisfy constraints from paleo-data. In all the simulations, the amount of carbon added was in line with the inferred transfers of carbon among various reservoirs during the evolution from the LGM to the pre-industrial (PI) period, suggesting that the simulated glacial ocean states are compatible with the PI one in terms of the carbon budget. The increase in total alkalinity required to simulate ocean states that were deemed appropriate for the LGM was in broad quantitative accord with the scenario of post-glacial shallow water deposition of calcium carbonate, although a more precise assessment would demand further studies of various processes such as the land chemical weathering and deep-sea burial of calcium carbonates, which have affected the alkalinity budget throughout history since the LGM. On the other hand, comparisons between the simulated distributions of paleoceanographic tracers and corresponding reconstructions clearly highlighted the different water-mass geometries and favoured a shallower Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) for the LGM as compared to PI.

Description: The newly developed fast Earth system model CLIMBER-X is presented. The climate component of CLIMBER-X consists of a 2.5-D semi-empirical statistical–dynamical atmosphere model, a 3-D frictional–geostrophic ocean model, a dynamic–thermodynamic sea ice model and a land surface model. All the model components are discretized on a regular lat–long grid with a horizontal resolution of . The model has a throughput of ∼ 10 000 simulation years per day on a single node with 16 CPUs on a high-performance computer and is designed to simulate the evolution of the Earth system on temporal scales ranging from decades to 〉100 000 years. A comprehensive evaluation of the model performance for the present day and the historical period shows that CLIMBER-X is capable of realistically reproducing many observed climate characteristics, with results that generally lie within the range of state-of-the-art general circulation models. The analysis of model performance is complemented by a thorough assessment of climate feedbacks and model sensitivities to changes in external forcings and boundary conditions. Limitations and applicability of the model are critically discussed. CLIMBER-X also includes a detailed representation of the global carbon cycle and is coupled to an ice sheet model, which will be described in separate papers. CLIMBER-X is available as open-source code and is expected to be a useful tool for studying past climate changes and for the investigation of the long-term future evolution of the climate.

Description: Mineral dust aerosol constitutes an important component of the Earth's climate system, not only on short timescales due to direct and indirect influences on the radiation budget but also on long timescales by acting as a fertilizer for the biosphere and thus affecting the global carbon cycle. For a quantitative assessment of its impact on the global climate, state-of-the-art atmospheric and aerosol models can be utilized. In this study, we use the ECHAM6.3-HAM2.3 model to perform global simulations of the mineral dust cycle for present-day (PD), pre-industrial (PI), and last glacial maximum (LGM) climate conditions. The intercomparison with marine sediment and ice core data, as well as other modeling studies, shows that the obtained annual dust emissions of 1221, 923, and 5159 Tg for PD, PI, and LGM, respectively, generally agree well with previous findings. Our analyses focusing on the Southern Hemisphere suggest that over 90 % of the mineral dust deposited over Antarctica are of Australian or South American origin during both PI and LGM. However, contrary to previous studies, we find that Australia contributes a higher proportion during the LGM, which is mainly caused by changes in the precipitation patterns. Obtained increased particle radii during the LGM can be traced back to increased sulfate condensation on the particle surfaces as a consequence of longer particle lifetimes. The meridional transport of mineral dust from its source regions to the South Pole takes place at different altitudes depending on the grain size of the dust particles. We find a trend of generally lower transport heights during the LGM compared to PI as a consequence of reduced convection due to colder surfaces, indicating a vertically less extensive Polar cell.

Description: Despite several studies on decadal-scale solar influence on climate, a systematic analysis of the Sun's contribution to decadal surface climate predictability is still missing. Here, we disentangle the solar-cycle-induced climate response from internal variability and from other external forcings such as greenhouse gases. We utilize two 10-member ensemble simulations with a state-of-the-art chemistry–climate model, to date a unique dataset in chemistry–climate modeling. Using these model simulations, we quantify the potential predictability related to the solar cycle and demonstrate that the detectability of the solar influence on surface climate depends on the magnitude of the solar cycle. Further, we show that a strong solar cycle forcing organizes and synchronizes the decadal-scale component of the North Atlantic Oscillation, the dominant mode of climate variability in the North Atlantic region.

Description: Our understanding of the biogeochemical cycling of the climate-relevant trace gas dimethyl sulfide (DMS) in the Peruvian upwelling system is still limited. Here we present oceanic and atmospheric DMS measurements which were made during two shipborne cruises in December 2012 (M91) and October 2015 (SO243) in the Peruvian upwelling region. Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) were also measured during M91. DMS concentrations were 1.9 ± 0.9 and 2.5 ± 1.9 nmol L−1 in surface waters in October 2015 and December 2012, respectively. Nutrient availability appeared to be the main driver of the observed variability in the surface DMS distributions in the coastal areas. DMS, DMSP, and DMSO showed maxima in the surface layer, and no elevated concentrations associated with the oxygen minimum zone off Peru were measured. The possible role of DMS, DMSP, and DMSO as radical scavengers (stimulated by nitrogen limitation) is supported by their negative correlations with N:P (sum of nitrate and nitrite : dissolved phosphate) ratios. Large variations in atmospheric DMS mole fractions were measured during M91 (144.6 ± 95.0 ppt) and SO243 (91.4 ± 55.8 ppt); however, the atmospheric mole fractions were generally low, and the sea-to-air flux was primarily driven by seawater DMS. The Peruvian upwelling region was identified as a source of atmospheric DMS in December 2012 and October 2015. However, in comparison to the previous measurements in the adjacent regions, the Peru upwelling was a moderate source of DMS emissions at either time (M91: 5.9 ± 5.3 µmol m−2 d−1; SO243: 3.8 ± 2.7 µmol m−2 d−1).

Description: Heavy metal pollution originating from anthropogenic sources, e.g., mining, industry and extensive land use, is increasing in many parts of the world and influences coastal marine environments for a long time. The elevated input of heavy metals into the marine system potentially affects the biota because of their toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation. An emerging tool for environmental applications is the heavy metal incorporation into foraminiferal tests calcite, which facilitates monitoring of anthropogenic footprints on recent and past environmental systems. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the incorporation of heavy metals in foraminifera is a direct function of their concentration in seawater. Culturing experiments with a mixture of dissolved chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), silver (Ag), cadmium (Cd), tin (Sn), mercury (Hg) and lead (Pb) in artificial seawater were carried out over a wide concentration range to assess the uptake of heavy metals by the near-shore foraminiferal species Ammonia aomoriensis, Ammonia batava and Elphidium excavatum. Seawater analysis exhibited the increasing metal concentrations between culturing phases and revealed high metal concentrations in the beginning of the culturing phases due to the punctual metal addition. Furthermore, a loss of metals during the culturing process was discovered, which lead to a deviation between the expected and the actual concentrations of the metals in seawater. Laser ablation ICP-MS analysis of the newly formed calcite revealed species-specific differences in the incorporation of heavy metals. The foraminiferal calcite of all three species reveals a strong positive correlation with Pb and Ag concentrations in the culturing medium. Ammonia aomoriensis further showed a correlation with Mn and Cu, A. batava with Mn and Hg and E. excavatum with Cr and Ni, and partially also with Hg. Zn, Sn and Cd showed no clear trend for the species studied, which may be caused by the little variation of these metals in seawater. Our calibrations and the calculated partition coefficients render A. aomoriensis, A. batava and E. excavatum as natural archives that enable the direct quantification of metals in polluted and pristine environments. This in turn allows monitoring of the ecosystem status of areas that are potentially under the threat of anthropogenic pollution in order to evaluate contemporary emission reduction measures.

Description: To mitigate the rumen enteric methane (CH4) produced by ruminant livestock, Asparagopsis taxiformis is proposed as an additive to ruminant feed. During the cultivation of Asparagopsis taxiformis in the sea or in terrestrially based systems, this macroalgae, like most seaweeds and phytoplankton, produces a large amount of bromoform (CHBr3), which contributes to ozone depletion once released into the atmosphere. In this study, we focus on the impact of CHBr3 on the stratospheric ozone layer resulting from potential emissions from proposed Asparagopsis cultivation in Australia. The impact is assessed by weighting the emissions of CHBr3 with its ozone depletion potential (ODP), which is traditionally defined for long-lived halocarbons but has also been applied to very short-lived substances (VSLSs). An annual yield of ∼3.5 × 104 Mg dry weight is required to meet the needs of 50 % of the beef feedlot and dairy cattle in Australia. Our study shows that the intensity and impact of CHBr3 emissions vary, depending on location and cultivation scenarios. Of the proposed locations, tropical farms near the Darwin region are associated with the largest CHBr3 ODP values. However, farming of Asparagopsis using either ocean or terrestrial cultivation systems at any of the proposed locations does not have the potential to significantly impact the ozone layer. Even if all Asparagopsis farming were performed in Darwin, the CHBr3 emitted into the atmosphere would amount to less than 0.02 % of the global ODP-weighted emissions. The impact of remaining farming scenarios is also relatively small even if the intended annual yield in Darwin is scaled by a factor of 30 to meet the global requirements, which will increase the global ODP-weighted emissions up to ∼0.5 %.

Description: Oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) are characterized by enhanced carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and low pH and are being further acidified by uptake of anthropogenic atmospheric CO2. With ongoing intensification and expansion of OMZs due to global warming, carbonate chemistry conditions may become more variable and extreme, particularly in the eastern boundary upwelling systems. In austral summer (February–April) 2017, a large-scale mesocosm experiment was conducted in the coastal upwelling area off Callao (Peru) to investigate the impacts of ongoing ocean deoxygenation on biogeochemical processes, coinciding with a rare coastal El Niño event. Here we report on the temporal dynamics of carbonate chemistry in the mesocosms and surrounding Pacific waters over a continuous period of 50 d with high-temporal-resolution observations (every second day). The mesocosm experiment simulated an upwelling event in the mesocosms by addition of nitrogen (N)-deficient and CO2-enriched OMZ water. Surface water in the mesocosms was acidified by the OMZ water addition, with pHT lowered by 0.1–0.2 and pCO2 elevated to above 900 µatm. Thereafter, surface pCO2 quickly dropped to near or below the atmospheric level (405.22 µatm in 2017; Dlugokencky and Tans, 2021; NOAA/Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML)) mainly due to enhanced phytoplankton production with rapid CO2 consumption. Further observations revealed that the dominance of the dinoflagellate Akashiwo sanguinea and contamination of bird excrements played important roles in the dynamics of carbonate chemistry in the mesocosms. Compared to the simulated upwelling, natural upwelling events in the surrounding Pacific waters occurred more frequently with sea-to-air CO2 fluxes of 4.2–14.0 mmol C m−2 d−1. The positive CO2 fluxes indicated our site was a local CO2 source during our study, which may have been impacted by the coastal El Niño. However, our observations of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) drawdown in the mesocosms suggest that CO2 fluxes to the atmosphere can be largely dampened by biological processes. Overall, our study characterized carbonate chemistry in nearshore Pacific waters that are rarely sampled in such a temporal resolution and hence provided unique insights into the CO2 dynamics during a rare coastal El Niño event.

Description: In the Baltic Sea, salinity and its large variability, both horizontal and vertical, are key physical factors in determining the overall stratification conditions. In addition to that, salinity and its changes also have large effects on various ecosystem processes. Several factors determine the observed two-layer vertical structure of salinity. Due to the excess of river runoff to the sea, there is a continuous outflow of water masses in the surface layer with a compensating inflow to the Baltic in the lower layer. Also, the net precipitation plays a role in the water balance and consequently in the salinity dynamics. The salinity conditions in the sea are also coupled with the changes in the meteorological conditions. The ecosystem is adapted to the current salinity level: a change in the salinity balance would lead to ecological stress of flora and fauna, and related negative effects on possibilities to carry on sustainable development of the ecosystem. The Baltic Sea salinity regime has been studied for more than 100 years. In spite of that, there are still gaps in our knowledge of the changes of salinity in space and time. An important part of our understanding of salinity are its long-term changes. However, the available scenarios for the future development of salinity are still inaccurate. We still need more studies on various factors related to salinity dynamics. Among others more knowledge is needed, e.g. from meteorological patterns in various space and time scales and mesoscale variability in precipitation. Also, updated information on river runoff and inflows of saline water is needed to close the water budget. We still do not understand accurately enough the water mass exchange between North Sea and Baltic Sea and within its sub-basins. Scientific investigations of the complicated vertical mixing processes are additionally required. This paper is a continuation and update of the BACC II book which was published in 2015, including information from articles issued until 2012. After that, there have been many new publications on the salinity dynamics, not least because of the Major Baltic Inflow which took place in December 2014. Several key topics have been investigated, including the coupling of long-term variations of climate with the observed salinity changes. Here the focus is on observing and indicating the role of climate change for salinity dynamics. New results of MBI-dynamics and related water mass interchange between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea have been published. Those studies also included results from the MBI-related meteorological conditions, variability in salinity and exchange of water masses between various scales. All these processes are in turn coupled with changes in the Baltic Sea circulation dynamics.

Description: We present a global atlas of downcore foraminiferal oxygen and carbon isotope ratios available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.936747 (Mulitza et al., 2021a). The database contains 2106 published and previously unpublished stable isotope downcore records with 361 949 stable isotope values of various planktic and benthic species of Foraminifera from 1265 sediment cores. Age constraints are provided by 6153 uncalibrated radiocarbon ages from 598 (47 %) of the cores. Each stable isotope and radiocarbon series is provided in a separate netCDF file containing fundamental metadata as attributes. The data set can be managed and explored with the free software tool PaleoDataView. The atlas will provide important data for paleoceanographic analyses and compilations, site surveys, or for teaching marine stratigraphy. The database can be updated with new records as they are generated, providing a live ongoing resource into the future.

Description: Plastic debris is the most common and exponentially increasing human pollutant in the world's ocean. The distribution and impact of plastic in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans have been the subject of many publications but not so the Indian Ocean (IO). Some of the IO rim countries have the highest population densities globally and mismanagement of plastic waste is of concern in many of these rim states. Some of the most plastic-polluted rivers empty into the IO, with all this suggesting that the IO receives a tremendous amount of plastic debris each year. However, the concentration, distribution, and impacts of plastics in the IO are poorly understood as the region is under-sampled compared to other oceans. In this review, we discuss sources and sinks, which are specific to the IO. We also discuss unique atmospheric, oceanographic, and topographic features of the IO that control plastic distribution, such as reversing wind directions due to the monsoon, fronts, and upwelling regions. We identify hotspots of possible plastic accumulation in the IO, which differ between the two hemispheres. In the southern IO, plastics accumulate in a garbage patch in the subtropical gyre. However, this garbage patch is not well defined, and plastics may leak into the southern Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean. There is no subtropical gyre and associated garbage in the northern IO due to the presence of landmasses. Instead, the majority of buoyant plastics most likely end up on coastlines. Finally, we identify the vast knowledge gaps concerning plastics in the IO and point to the most pressing topics for future investigation.

Description: In engineering, machines are typically built after a careful conception and design process: All components of a system, their roles and the interaction between them is well understood, and often even digital models of the system exist before the actual hardware is built. This enables simulations and even feedback loops between the real-world system and a digital model, leading to a digital twin that allows better testing, prediction and understanding of complex effects. On the contrary, in Earth sciences, and particularly in ocean sciences, models exist only for certain aspects of the real world, of certain processes and of some interactions and dependencies between different “components” of the ocean. These individual models cover large temporal (seconds to millions of years) and spatial (millimetres to thousands of kilometres) scales, a variety of field data underpin them, and their results are represented in many different ways. A key to enabling digital twins in the oceans is fusion at different levels, in particular, fusion of data sources and modalities, fusion over different scales and fusion of differing representations. We outline these challenges and exemplify different envisioned digital twins employed in the oceans involving remote sensing, underwater photogrammetry and computer vision, focusing on optical aspects of the digital twinning process. In particular, we look at the holistic sensing scenarios of optical properties in coastal waters as well as seafloor dynamics at volcanic slopes and discuss road blockers for digital twins as well as potential solutions to increase and widen the use of digital twins.

Description: With the increase in computational power, ocean models with kilometer-scale resolution have emerged over the last decade. These models have been used for quantifying the energetic exchanges between spatial scales, informing the design of eddy parametrizations, and preparing observing networks. The increase in resolution, however, has drastically increased the size of model outputs, making it difficult to transfer and analyze the data. It remains, nonetheless, of primary importance to assess more systematically the realism of these models. Here, we showcase a cloud-based analysis framework proposed by the Pangeo project that aims to tackle such distribution and analysis challenges. We analyze the output of eight submesoscale-permitting simulations, all on the cloud, for a crossover region of the upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) altimeter mission near the Gulf Stream separation. The cloud-based analysis framework (i) minimizes the cost of duplicating and storing ghost copies of data and (ii) allows for seamless sharing of analysis results amongst collaborators. We describe the framework and provide example analyses (e.g., sea-surface height variability, submesoscale vertical buoyancy fluxes, and comparison to predictions from the mixed-layer instability parametrization). Basin- to global-scale, submesoscale-permitting models are still at their early stage of development; their cost and carbon footprints are also rather large. It would, therefore, benefit the community to document the different model configurations for future best practices. We also argue that an emphasis on data analysis strategies would be crucial for improving the models themselves.

Description: Numerical modeling enables a comprehensive understanding not only of the Earth's system today, but also of the past. To date, a significant amount of time and effort has been devoted to paleoclimate modeling and analysis, which involves the latest and most advanced Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project phase 4 (PMIP4). The definition of seasonality, which is influenced by slow variations in the Earth's orbital parameters, plays a key role in determining the calculated seasonal cycle of the climate. In contrast to the classical calendar used today, where the lengths of the months and seasons are fixed, the angular calendar calculates the lengths of the months and seasons according to a fixed number of degrees along the Earth's orbit. When comparing simulation results for different time intervals, it is essential to account for the angular calendar to ensure that the data for comparison are from the same position along the Earth's orbit. Most models use the classical calendar, which can lead to strong distortions of the monthly and seasonal values, especially for the climate of the past. Here, by analyzing daily outputs from multiple PMIP4 model simulations, we examine calendar effects on surface air temperature and precipitation under mid-Holocene, Last Interglacial, and pre-industrial climate conditions. We came to the following conclusions. (a) The largest cooling bias occurs in boreal autumn when the classical calendar is applied for the mid-Holocene and Last Interglacial, due to the fact that the vernal equinox is fixed on 21 March. (b) The sign of the temperature anomalies between the Last Interglacial and pre-industrial in boreal autumn can be reversed after the switch from the classical to angular calendar, particularly over the Northern Hemisphere continents. (c) Precipitation over West Africa is overestimated in boreal summer and underestimated in boreal autumn when the classical seasonal cycle is applied. (d) Finally, month-length adjusted values for surface air temperature and precipitation are very similar to the day-length adjusted values, and therefore correcting the calendar based on the monthly model results can largely reduce the artificial bias. In addition, we examine the calendar effects in three transient simulations for 6–0 ka by AWI-ESM, MPI-ESM, and IPSL-CM. We find significant discrepancies between adjusted and unadjusted temperature values over continents for both hemispheres in boreal autumn, while for other seasons the deviations are relatively small. A drying bias can be found in the summer monsoon precipitation in Africa (in the classical calendar), whereby the magnitude of bias becomes smaller over time. Overall, our study underlines the importance of the application of calendar transformation in the analysis of climate simulations. Neglecting the calendar effects could lead to a profound artificial distortion of the calculated seasonal cycle of surface air temperature and precipitation.

Description: The incorporation of water isotopologues into the hydrology of general circulation models (GCMs) facilitates the comparison between modeled and measured proxy data in paleoclimate archives. However, the variability and drivers of measured and modeled water isotopologues, as well as the diversity of their representation in different models, are not well constrained. Improving our understanding of this variability in past and present climates will help to better constrain future climate change projections and decrease their range of uncertainty. Speleothems are a precisely datable terrestrial paleoclimate archives and provide well-preserved (semi-)continuous multivariate isotope time series in the lower latitudes and mid-latitudes and are therefore well suited to assess climate and isotope variability on decadal and longer timescales. However, the relationships of speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopes to climate variables are influenced by site-specific parameters, and their comparison to GCMs is not always straightforward. Here we compare speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopic signatures from the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and Analysis database version 2 (SISALv2) to the output of five different water-isotope-enabled GCMs (ECHAM5-wiso, GISS-E2-R, iCESM, iHadCM3, and isoGSM) over the last millennium (850–1850 CE). We systematically evaluate differences and commonalities between the standardized model simulation outputs. The goal is to distinguish climatic drivers of variability for modeled isotopes and compare them to those of measured isotopes. We find strong regional differences in the oxygen isotope signatures between models that can partly be attributed to differences in modeled surface temperature. At low latitudes, precipitation amount is the dominant driver for stable water isotope variability; however, at cave locations the agreement between modeled temperature variability is higher than for precipitation variability. While modeled isotopic signatures at cave locations exhibited extreme events coinciding with changes in volcanic and solar forcing, such fingerprints are not apparent in the speleothem isotopes. This may be attributed to the lower temporal resolution of speleothem records compared to the events that are to be detected. Using spectral analysis, we can show that all models underestimate decadal and longer variability compared to speleothems (albeit to varying extents). We found that no model excels in all analyzed comparisons, although some perform better than the others in either mean or variability. Therefore, we advise a multi-model approach whenever comparing proxy data to modeled data. Considering karst and cave internal processes, e.g., through isotope-enabled karst models, may alter the variability in speleothem isotopes and play an important role in determining the most appropriate model. By exploring new ways of analyzing the relationship between the oxygen and carbon isotopes, their variability, and co-variability across timescales, we provide methods that may serve as a baseline for future studies with different models using, e.g., different isotopes, different climate archives, or different time periods.

Description: Planktonic food webs were studied contemporaneously in a mesoscale cyclonic (upwelling, ∼ 13 months old) and an anticyclonic (downwelling, ∼ 2 months old) eddy as well as in an uninfluenced background situation in the oligotrophic southeastern Mediterranean Sea (SEMS) during late summer 2018. We show that integrated nutrient concentrations were higher in the cyclone compared to the anticyclone or the background stations by 2–13-fold. Concurrently, Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus were the dominant autotrophs abundance-wise in the oligotrophic anticyclone (∼ 300 × 1010 cells m−2). In the cyclone, functional groups such as dinoflagellates, Prymnesiophyceae and Ochrophyta contributed substantially to the total phytoplankton abundance (∼ 14 × 1010 cells m−2), which was ∼ 65 % lower at the anticyclone and background stations (∼ 5 × 1010 cells m−2). Primary production was highest in the cyclonic eddy (191 ) and 2–5-fold lower outside the eddy area. Heterotrophic prokaryotic cell-specific activity was highest in the cyclone (∼ 10 ), while the least productive cells were found in the anticyclone (4 ). Total zooplankton biomass in the upper 300 m was 10-fold higher in the cyclone compared with the anticyclone or background stations (1337 vs. 112–133 mg C m−2, respectively). Copepod diversity was much higher in the cyclone (44 species), compared to the anticyclone (6 small-size species). Our results highlight that cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies show significantly different community structure and food-web dynamics in oligotrophic environments, with cyclones representing productive oases in the marine desert of the SEMS.

Description: Amino acids (AAs) mainly bound in proteins are major constituents of living biomass and non-living organic material in the oceanic particulate and dissolved organic matter pool. Uptake and cycling by heterotrophic organisms lead to characteristic changes in AA composition so that AA-based biogeochemical indicators are often used to elucidate processes of organic matter cycling and degradation. We analyzed particulate AA in a large sample set collected in various oceanic regions covering sinking and suspended particles in the water column, sediment samples, and dissolved AA from water column and pore water samples. The aim of this study was to test and improve the use of AA-derived biogeochemical indicators as proxies for organic matter sources and degradation and to better understand particle dynamics and interaction between the dissolved and particulate organic matter pools. A principal component analysis (PCA) of all data delineates diverging AA compositions of sinking and suspended particles with increasing water depth. A new sinking particle and sediment degradation indicator (SDI) allows a fine-tuned classification of sinking particles and sediments with respect to the intensity of degradation, which is associated with changes of stable isotopic ratios of nitrogen (δ15N). This new indicator is furthermore sensitive to sedimentary redox conditions and can be used to detect past anoxic early diagenesis. A second indicator emerges from the AA spectra of suspended particulate matter (SPM) in the epipelagic and that of the meso- and bathypelagic ocean and is a residence time indicator (RTI). The characteristic changes in AA patterns from shallow to deep SPM are recapitulated in the AA spectra of the dissolved organic matter (DOM) pool, so that deep SPM is more similar to DOM than to any of the other organic matter pools. This implies that there is equilibration between finely dispersed SPM and DOM in the deep sea, which may be driven by microbial activity combined with annealing and fragmentation of gels. As these processes strongly depend on physico-chemical conditions in the deep ocean, changes in quality and degradability of DOM may strongly affect the relatively large pool of suspended and dissolved AA in the ocean that amounts to 15 Pg amino acid carbon (AAC) and 89 ± 29 Pg AAC, respectively.

Description: Marine particles of different nature are found throughout the global ocean. The term "marine particles" describes detritus aggregates and fecal pellets as well as bacterioplankton, phytoplankton, zooplankton and nekton. Here, we present a global particle size distribution dataset obtained with several Underwater Vision Profiler 5 (UVP5) camera systems. Overall, within the 64 mu m to about 50 mm size range covered by the UVP5, detrital particles are the most abundant component of all marine particles; thus, measurements of the particle size distribution with the UVP5 can yield important information on detrital particle dynamics. During deployment, which is possible down to 6000 m depth, the UVP5 images a volume of about 1 L at a frequency of 6 to 20 Hz. Each image is segmented in real time, and size measurements of particles are automatically stored. All UVP5 units used to generate the dataset presented here were inter-calibrated using a UVP5 high-definition unit as reference. Our consistent particle size distribution dataset contains 8805 vertical profiles collected between 19 June 2008 and 23 November 2020. All major ocean basins, as well as the Mediterranean Sea and the Baltic Sea, were sampled. A total of 19 % of all profiles had a maximum sampling depth shallower than 200 dbar, 38 % sampled at least the upper 1000 dbar depth range and 11 % went down to at least 3000 dbar depth. First analysis of the particle size distribution dataset shows that particle abundance is found to be high at high latitudes and in coastal areas where surface productivity or continental inputs are elevated. The lowest values are found in the deep ocean and in the oceanic gyres. Our dataset should be valuable for more in-depth studies that focus on the analysis of regional, temporal and global patterns of particle size distribution and flux as well as for the development and adjustment of regional and global biogeochemical models. The marine particle size distribution dataset (Kiko et al., 2021) is available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.924375.

Description: Changes in stratospheric ozone concentrations and increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) alter the temperature structure of the atmosphere and drive changes in the atmospheric and oceanic circulation. We systematically investigate the impacts of ozone recovery and increasing GHGs on the atmospheric and oceanic circulation in the Southern Hemisphere during the twenty-first century using a unique coupled ocean–atmosphere climate model with interactive ozone chemistry and enhanced oceanic resolution. We use the high-emission scenario SSP5-8.5 for GHGs under which the springtime Antarctic total column ozone returns to 1980s levels by 2048 in our model, warming the lower stratosphere and strengthening the stratospheric westerly winds. We perform a spatial analysis and show for the first time that the austral spring stratospheric response to GHGs exhibits a marked planetary wavenumber 1 (PW1) pattern, which reinforces the response to ozone recovery over the Western Hemisphere and weakens it over the Eastern Hemisphere. These changes, which imply an eastward phase shift in the PW1, largely cancel out in the zonal mean. The Southern Hemisphere residual circulation strengthens during most of the year due to the increase in GHGs and weakens in spring due to ozone recovery. However, we find that in November the GHGs also drive a weakening of the residual circulation, reinforcing the effect of ozone recovery, which represents another novel result. At the surface, the westerly winds weaken and shift equatorward due to ozone recovery, driving a weak decrease in the transport of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and in the Agulhas leakage and a cooling of the upper ocean, which is most pronounced in the latitudinal band 35–45∘ S. The increasing GHGs drive changes in the opposite direction that overwhelm the ozone effect. The total changes at the surface and in the oceanic circulation are nevertheless weaker in the presence of ozone recovery than those induced by GHGs alone, highlighting the importance of the Montreal Protocol in mitigating some of the impacts of climate change. We additionally compare the combined effect of interactively calculated ozone recovery and increasing GHGs with their combined effect in an ensemble in which we prescribe the CMIP6 ozone field. This second ensemble simulates a weaker ozone effect in all the examined fields, consistent with its weaker increase in ozone. The magnitude of the difference between the simulated changes at the surface and in the oceanic circulation in the two ensembles is as large as the ozone effect itself. This shows the large uncertainty that is associated with the choice of the ozone field and how the ozone is treated.

Description: The Peruvian Upwelling System hosts an extremely high productive marine ecosystem. Observations show that the Peruvian Upwelling System is the only Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS) with an out-of-phase relationship of seasonal surface chlorophyll concentrations and upwelling intensity. This "seasonal paradox" triggers the questions: (1) what is the uniqueness of the Peruvian Upwelling System compared with other EBUS that leads to the out of phase relationship; (2) how does this uniqueness lead to low phytoplankton biomass in austral winter despite strong upwelling and ample nutrients? Using observational climatologies for four EBUS we diagnose that the Peruvian Upwelling System is unique in that intense upwelling coincides with deep mixed layers. We then apply a coupled regional ocean circulation-biogeochemical model (CROCO-BioEBUS) to assess how the interplay between mixed layer and upwelling is regulating the seasonality of surface chlorophyll in the Peruvian Upwelling System. The model recreates the "seasonal paradox" within 200 km off the Peruvian coast. We confirm previous findings that deep mixed layers, which cause vertical dilution and stronger light limitation, mostly drive the diametrical seasonality of chlorophyll relative to upwelling. In contrast to previous studies, reduced phytoplankton growth due to enhanced upwelling of cold waters and lateral advection are second-order drivers of low surface chlorophyll concentrations. This impact of deep mixed layers and upwelling propagates up the ecosystem, from primary production to export efficiency. Our findings emphasize the crucial role of the interplay of the mixed layer and upwelling and suggest that surface chlorophyll may increase along with a weakened seasonal paradox in response to shoaling mixed layers under climate change.