Field Campaigns

1. Field Campaigns Paula Bontempi NASA Headquarters Ocean Color Research Team Meeting 1 May 2008

2. Future Science – A Blank Slate Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program planning document identifies a global ocean mission with enhanced spectral resolution from the UV to SWIR as the top priority future mission. Measurements will contribute greatly toward achieving all four ocean-related science objectives identified in the NASA Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems roadmap (circled in red, right) 1. How are ocean ecosystems and the biodiversity they support influenced by climate and environmental variability and change, and how will these changes occur over time? 2. How do carbon and other elements transition between ocean pools and pass through the Earth System, and how do biogeochemical fluxes impact the ocean and Earth's climate over time? 3. How (and why) is the diversity and geographical distribution of coastal marine habitats changing, and what are the implications for the well-being of human society? 4. How do hazards and pollutants impact the hydrography and biology of the coastal zone? How do they affect us, and can we mitigate their effects?

3. Field Campaign Ideas • Inquiry for ideas for field campaigns (LBA for oceans) went out to NASA PI list back in September 2007, and then out on the OCB list in March 2008 • JGOFS • Southern Ocean GasEx • Arctic 2009-10 • how and why are ocean ecosystems responding to a warming Arctic and Bering Sea and associated increased insolation • what are the impacts of the changing climate on Bering Sea and Arctic carbon chemistry, including ocean acidification and air/sea CO2 flux? • what is the impact of changing ice sheet and sea ice structure on ocean margins/coastal ecology and river runoff, and how does this affect offshore fluxes of particles? • Make field work a regular component of the program plan, in support of new missions, in partnership internationally, to provide the basis for future science • Response: • Field projects • Field campaigns

4. Field Campaign Ideas – Field Work • POC: Optical field work to validate CALIPSO observations/optical backscattering as a function of depth for POC; ship/aircraft LIDAR/CALIPSO – Gulf of Maine/S. California/Gulf of Mexico • Evolution/biogeochemistry/carbon fluxes associated with spring bloom; characterizing oligotrophic summertime ocean under a range of iron supply; Process study over global oceans: underway measurements of biogeochemical properties in mixed layer, bio-optical properties, pigments, shipboard flow cytometry, mixed layer flow carbon balance studies, trace metals, POC • Support Argo program for float deployment; compare/contrast protocols across groups/PIs; matchups with remote sensing for resolving the full mixed layer is an undulating towed vehicle behind a steaming vessel (e.g. a Seasoar). • Primary production and phytoplankton absorption: productivity normalized by phytoplankton absorption constant in surface ocean. • Ocean heterotrophy from remote sensing: connect respiration to ocean color via its relationship to primary production, from coastal to open ocean, for net autotrophic production, net autotrophic respiration, community respiration • High-latitude remote sensing validation. • Coastal waters linking land/ocean/atm scientists • Ocean straits: variability in ocean color across ocean straits can be used to estimate transports through the straits (Lombok, Indonesia)

5. Field Campaign Ideas – Field Work • Multi-disciplinary field campaign to monitor carbon and phytoplankton changes in the Orinoco River plume and watershed • Linking tropical river plume biogeochemistry to remote sensing observations: quantify and model biogeochemical linkages between C and N in Orinoco, Amazon River plumes as they spread across eastern Caribbean and Western Tropical Atlantic basins. • Systematic Estimates of Primary Production and Net Community Production Rates across the Ocean Basins: the rate of anthropogenic CO2 uptake by the ocean in the future is how the magnitude of the biological carbon pump will change. • Self-shading correction for in-water radiometry: validate models and apply to the vast array of in-water radiometers, function of the optical properties of the water under study • Episodic carbon export of benthic macroalgae (Bahamas) to the deep seafloor

6. Field Campaign Ideas – Field Campaign on LBA Scale • Terrestrial, Atmosphere and Coastal Carbon Fluxes and Exchanges in the Gulf of Mexico; terrestrial and coastal carbon fluxes and exchanges; carbon signal uncertainties, link to terrestrial C budget, role of shelf physics, ecological transformations, impacts of climate change, resource management • The applications of understanding sediment load into lakes and coastal waters from glacial melt - new applications of remote sensing and understanding implications of climate change and hazards in coastal zone: with the glacial community, an intensive field effort to get AOPs and IOPs of glacial meltwater • Global: Feedbacks between the hydrological cycle, land use, and natural ocean carbon sequestration processes in the coming century: the ability of the oceans to naturally sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide decadal changes, changes in land use/hydrological cycle alter Aeolian iron fluxes to ocean. • North Atlantic circulation, biology, biogeochemical cycles are poised to change dramatically surface salinity and inhibition of N Atlantic Deep Water formation change. Time series in Azores; link two time series further south and address a larger North Atlantic gyre • Plankton-climate interactions and tropical variability; distribution of heat in the upper ocean, biology, chemistry, physics • Arabian Sea: impacts of warming, monsoonal shifts on biology, biogeochemistry; Indian Ocean; impacts of warming, nutrient inputs, currents and variability, fate of PP, global change/anthropogenic impacts, higher tropic levels

7. Field Campaign Ideas – Field Campaign on LBA Scale • Antarctic and Arctic global change regions; standard algorithm validation; • Southern Ocean, gradients across polar front, two major iron-driven zonal transitions (smaller-Kerguelan; massive = Southern Drake Passage) need to be explored in relation to export flux, community structure, productivity, and how Fe affects this so Fe changes with climate can be better modeled. • For Arctic, receding sea ice, albedo, characterize sea ice bio-physical feedback; Arctic river input, and changes with climate, are very important, CDOM from river (Arctic vs Antarctic. • microbial ecology, nutrient use and transformation, fluxes • NABE: subpolar variability in biology and carbon fluxes + modeling • Characterizing biogeochemical properties and carbon fluxes of the mixed layer over • oceanic reaches spanning a broad array of biogeochemical ‘provinces’ or ‘states’:relationships between remote sensing optical properties and ocean mixed-layer characteristics, understanding of links between physical and geochemical forcings, ecosystem structure, and carbon fluxes (N. Atl, S. Pacific)

8. Field Campaign Ideas – Field Campaign on LBA Scale • Basin Scale Trends in Limiting Factors for Nitrogen Fixation and Nitrogen Fixing Populations: Central North Pacific Ocean; nutrient factors controlling nitrogen fixation across major oceanic basins • Community composition in phytoplankton – community ecology at the genetic level on the ecosystem scale: a molecular biological approach to high resolution high throughput phytoplankton community composition determination; validation of both direct and remotely sensed pigment and carbon biomass analyses; polar oceans most rapidly affected by climate modification that will change amount of sea ice, ice edge, stratification, nutrient availability • Methane from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf – Early Warning of Global Climate Change and Positive Feedback: Global oceanic warming - methane releases from oceans, impact global climate, permafrost • Southern Ocean Biological Response to Iron deposition – biogeochemical rate processes, GPP, NCP • Biogeochemistry, Biodiversity, Bio-optics with emphasis on remote sensing aspects, • to be conducted in several contrasting biogeochemical/ecological provinces of the ocean