OCB Science Highlights

OCB Science Highlights

If you would like to have your recent publications featured on the OCB website and eNewsletter please contact ocb_news@whoi.edu. View our guidelines for writing a OCB Science Highlight.

Estuarine sediment resuspension drives non-local impacts on biogeochemistry

September 18, 2020

Sediment processes, including resuspension and transport, affect water quality in estuaries by altering light attenuation, primary productivity, and organic matter remineralization, which then influence oxygen and nitrogen dynamics. In a recent paper published in Estuaries and Coasts, the authors quantified the degree to which sediment resuspension and transport affected estuarine biogeochemistry by implementing a coupled […]

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The role of nutrient trapping in promoting shelf hypoxia in the southern Benguela upwelling system

September 3, 2020

The southern Benguela upwelling system (SBUS) off southwest Africa is an exceptionally fertile ocean region that supports valuable commercial fisheries. The productivity of this system derives from the upwelling of nutrient-rich Subantarctic Mode Water, and from the concurrent entrainment of nutrients regenerated proximately on the expansive continental shelf. The SBUS is prone to severe seasonal […]

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Profiling floats reveal fate of Southern Ocean phytoplankton stocks

September 1, 2020

More observations are needed to constrain the relative roles of physical (advection), biogeochemical (downward export), and ecological (grazing and biological losses) processes in driving the fate of phytoplankton blooms in Southern Ocean waters. In a recent paper published in Nature Communications, authors used seven Biogeochemical Argo (BGC-Argo) floats that vertically profiled the upper ocean every […]

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A close-up view of biomass controls in Southern Ocean eddies

August 20, 2020

Southern Ocean biological productivity is instrumental in regulating the global carbon cycle. Previous correlative studies associated widespread mesoscale activity with anomalous chlorophyll levels. However, eddies simultaneously modify both the physical and biogeochemical environments via several competing pathways, making it difficult to discern which mechanisms are responsible for the observed biological anomalies within them. Two recently […]

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Multiyear predictions of ocean acidification in the California Current System

August 20, 2020

The California Current System is a highly productive coastal upwelling region that supports commercial fisheries valued at $6 billion/year. These fisheries are supported by upwelled waters, which are rich in nutrients and serve as a natural fertilizer for phytoplankton. Due to remineralization of organic matter at depth, these upwelled waters also contain large amounts of […]

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Space-based estimates of estuarine dissolved organic carbon flux to the Mid-Atlantic Bight

August 5, 2020

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is a food supplement that supports microorganism growth and plays a major role in the global carbon cycle via the microbial loop, which integrates DOC into the marine food web. DOC from two major estuaries on the US East Coast, Chesapeake (CB) and Delaware Bay (DB), represent major contributors to the […]

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The curious role of organic alkalinity in seawater carbonate chemistry

August 5, 2020

The marine chemistry community has measured organic alkalinity in coastal and estuarine waters for over two decades. While the common perception is that any unaccounted alkalinity should enhance seawater buffer capacity, the effects of organic alkalinity on this buffering capacity, and hence the potential CO2 uptake by coastal and estuarine systems are still not well […]

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Turning a spotlight on grazing

July 23, 2020

Microscopic plankton in the surface ocean make planet Earth habitable by generating oxygen and forming the basis of marine food webs, yielding harvestable protein. For over 100 years, oceanographers have tried to ascertain the physical, chemical, and biological processes governing phytoplankton blooms. Zooplankton grazing of phytoplankton is the single largest loss process for primary production, […]

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Modern OMZ copepod dynamics provide analog for future oceans

July 23, 2020

Global warming increases ocean deoxygenation and expands the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ), which has implications for major zooplankton groups like copepods. Reduced oxygen levels may impact individual copepod species abundance, vertical distribution, and life history strategy, which is likely to perturb intricate oceanic food webs and export processes. In a study recently published in Biogeosciences, […]

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Blue hole in the South China Sea reveals ancient carbon

July 8, 2020

Blue holes are unique depositional environments that are formed within carbonate platforms. Due to an enclosed geomorphology that restricts water exchange, blue hole ecosystems are typically characterized by steep biogeochemical gradients and distinctive microbial communities. For the past three decades, studies have described vertical gradients in physical, chemical, and biological parameters that typify blue hole […]

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