Published

R/V Roger Revelle at sea, one of the research vessels CCE uses to investigate primary production, carbon export,
and plankton food web structure.
Credit: SIO Ship Operations

Process studies and related time series measurements reveal the under-appreciated importance of episodic events in the oceanic carbon budget. Spatial and temporal perturbations to the carbon cycle can be associated with (sub)mesoscale features (fronts, eddies, and filaments), which CCE LTER researchers have shown tend to be sites with enhanced phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass and production, and vertical carbon flux.

 

Learn more

  1. Landry MR et al. 2012. Pelagic community responses to a deep-water front in the California Current Ecosystem: overview of the A-Front Study. Journal of Plankton Research. doi: 10.1093/plankt/fbs025 (entire issue of 8 articles devoted to CCE-LTER’s A-Front study).
  2. Smith KL et al. 2018. Episodic organic carbon fluxes from surface ocean to abyssal depths during long-term monitoring in NE Pacific. PNAS. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1814559115
  3. Stukel MR et al. 2017. Mesoscale ocean fronts enhance carbon export due to gravitational sinking and subduction. PNAS. doi: 10.1073/ pnas.1609435114

Contact

Mark Ohman
mohman@ucsd.edu

Posted:  July 15, 2020