1 / 20

Influence of phytoplankton size structure on ocean carbon cycling and on ocean colour

Influence of phytoplankton size structure on ocean carbon cycling and on ocean colour Bob Brewin 1,2,3 , Shubha Sathyendranath 1,3 , w ith contributions from Giorgio Dall’Olmo 1,3 , Icarus Allen 1,3 , Lee De Mora 1 , Momme Butenschon 1

eli
Download Presentation

Influence of phytoplankton size structure on ocean carbon cycling and on ocean colour

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Influence of phytoplankton size structure on ocean carbon cycling and on ocean colour Bob Brewin1,2,3, ShubhaSathyendranath1,3, with contributions from Giorgio Dall’Olmo1,3, Icarus Allen1,3, Lee De Mora1 , Momme Butenschon1 1 Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), Prospect Place, The Hoe, Plymouth PL1 3DH, UK 2 ESA Changing Earth Science Network post-doctoral fellowship of the STSE program3 National Centre for Earth Observation, PML, Plymouth PL1 3DH, UK

  2. Importance of Phytoplankton The ocean contributes to ~1/4 of anthropogenic CO2(Le Quéré et al. 2009) ~1/2 of net global primary production (Longhurst et al. 1995) Evidence of declining ocean CO2sink (Canadellet al. 2007) Future changes are highly uncertain! • Earth system modelling is used for predicting and determining how the ocean and land sinks may respond in the future. These models are constrained / improved by comparison and verification with observations. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov

  3. Phytoplankton biomass and climate Source ESA: http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMB88KX3XG_index_1.html see also papers by Behrenfeldet al. (2006) Nature and Martinez et al. (2009) Science

  4. Influence of size structure on carbon cycle Phytoplankton physiology Metabolic rates An integrative approach to describing phytoplankton function and structure in relation to marine bio-geochemical cycling (Marañón 2009). Nutrient uptake Light absorption Sinking rate Exported production Cell size Marine food-web A number of biogeochemical models use a size class partitioning

  5. Phytoplankton size structure Brewinet al. (2010) Ecol. Model. Brewinet al. (2011) Appl. Optics Brewin et al. (2012a) Opt. Express Brewin et al. (2012b) Deep Sea Res. II Brotaset al. (2013) Rem. Sens. Environ. Brewin et al. (2014a) Deep Sea Res. I Brewin et al. (2014b) J Geophys. Res. Lin et al. (2014) Mar. Pollut. Bull.

  6. Influence of size structure on ocean colour PICO <2 μm

  7. Influence of size structure on ocean colour NANO 2-20 μm

  8. Influence of size structure on ocean colour MICRO >20 μm

  9. Influence of size structure on ocean colour

  10. Influence of size structure on ocean colour

  11. Influence of size structure on ocean colour

  12. Influence of size structure on ocean colour

  13. Satellite estimates of size structure Brewin et al. (2010) Ecol. Model.

  14. Phytoplankton size and climate .html Brewinet al. (2012) Deep-Sea Res. II

  15. Phytoplankton size and climate .html Brewinet al. (2012) Deep-Sea Res. II

  16. Model comparison EURO-BASIN Programme ERSEM PISCES MEDUSA .html • Holt et al. (2014) Progress in Oceanography

  17. Model comparison EURO-BASIN Programme .html • Holt et al. (2014) Progress in Oceanography

  18. Model data assimilation Before assimilation After assimilation When implementing assimilative models with more than one phytoplankton size class, the assimilation of size-fractionated chlorophyll provides an advantage over the assimilation of total chlorophyll. .html • Xiao and Friedrichs (2014) J Geophys. Res

  19. Summary • Phytoplankton size structure is an importance component of the ocean carbon cycle and other biogeochemical cycles. • Phytoplankton size structure has a direct influence on variations in reflected light within the visible electromagnetic spectrum. • These variations are implicitly build into standard empirical algorithms designed to estimate the total chlorophyll concentration as a function of reflected light. • These variations can be revealed through simple empirical relationships between total chlorophyll and size structure. • Satellite estimates of size structure can improve our understanding of the relationship between physical variables and size structure, and are useful for validation of, and assimilation into, multi-phytoplankton biogeochemical models. • This will ultimately improve our predictions and understanding of how the ocean ecosystem is responding to changes in climate.

  20. Acknowledgements • We thank contributors, crew and staff involved with the collection of all in situ data, particularly for AMTand NOMAD. • We thank all data contributors without whom this work would not be possible. In particular, Ray Barlow, Vanda Brotasand Jeremy Werdell. • We thank the ESA Changing Earth Science Network of the STSE program, NCEO and ESA OC-CCI project for financial support.

More Related