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.
Microbial filter-feeders actively filter water for bacteria-sized prey, but hydrodynamic theory predicts that their filtration rate should be one order of magnitude lower than what they realize. What is missing in our knowledge and modeling of these key components of aquatic food webs? In a recent study published in PNAS, Nielsen et al. (2017) used […]
Read MoreMost Earth System models (ESMs) that are used to study global climate and the carbon cycle do not resolve the most energetic scales in the ocean, the mesoscale (10-100 km), encompassing eddies, coastal jets, and other dynamic features strongly affecting nutrient delivery, productivity, and carbon export. This prompts the question: What are we missing in […]
Read MorePhaeodaria are single-celled eukaryotes (a.k.a. protists) belonging to the supergroup Rhizaria. Like diatoms, phaeodarians build up skeletons made of opaline silica, but unlike their emblematic relatives, phaeodarians have been largely ignored in the marine silica cycle. In a recent study published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles (also see related Research Spotlight in AGU Eos), authors used […]
Read MoreStudies over the past 25 years have supported the existence of a large net land biosphere CO2 sink of 0.5–2 PgC yr-1. Significant uncertainties remain, however, regarding the long-term partitioning between northern, tropical, and southern land sinks, in part connected to the uncertain ocean carbon sink. These uncertainties limit our capacity to predict earth system response to […]
Read MoreRelative to their surface area, coastal regions represent some of the largest carbon fluxes in the global ocean, driven by numerous physical, chemical and biological processes. Coastal systems also experience human impacts that affect carbon cycling, which has large socioeconomic implications. The highly dynamic nature of these systems necessitates observing approaches and numerical methods that […]
Read MoreThe continual flow of organic particles such as dead organisms and fecal material towards the deep sea is called “marine snow,” and it plays an important role in the ocean carbon cycle and climate-related processes. This snowfall is most intense where high primary production can be observed near the surface. This is the case along […]
Read MoreBy Ken Johnson (MBARI) The Biogeochemical-Argo (BGC-Argo) Program is an international effort to develop a global network of biogeochemical sensors on Argo profiling floats that has emerged from over a decade of community discussion and planning. While there is no formal funding for this global program, it is being implemented via a series of international […]
Read MoreCoastal habitats are critically important to humans, but without consistent and reliable observations we cannot understand the direction and magnitude of unfolding changes in these habitats. Environmental monitoring is therefore a prescient—yet still undervalued—societal service, and no effort better exemplifies this than the work conducted within the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS). NERRS is […]
Read MoreOceans worldwide are warming up, and thermohaline circulation is expected to slow down. At the same time, ocean acidity is increasing due to the influx of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, a phenomenon called ocean acidification that has primarily been documented in shallow waters. In general, deeper waters contain less anthropogenic CO2, but […]
Read MoreThere are vast unknowns about the future oceans, from what species or habitats may be most under threat to the continuity of earth system processes that maintain global climate. Modeling can be used to predict future states and explore the impacts of climate change, but several key uncertainties such as carbon-climate feedbacks hamper our predictive […]
Read More