Time Series Sediment Trapping in the Sargasso Sea and A Search for an Efficient Assessment of the Biological Pump

该项目代表了马尾藻海时间序列沉积物捕获研究所需的支持平衡，并确保在目前的P.I.之后继续开展工作我的全职工作。拟议的工作有两个主要目标：(1)大部分工作将用于确定表层海洋变量与深海碳通量之间的关系。许多研究人员认为，海洋生物群通过产生从混合层下沉的有机和碳酸盐颗粒，在将大气和上层海洋中的碳转移到深海中发挥了重要作用。然而，相对于人类活动向大气中注入的二氧化碳量，对这一“生物泵”机制的有效性的估计存在相当大的差距。因此，需要对泵的大小、可变性和长期趋势进行评估。对深海碳通量的直接测量太过昂贵，也太耗费人力，无法在长时间内进行大规模测量。然而，有一种明显的可能性是，更容易监测的海洋表面特性可以作为深层碳通量的代用物。为了验证这一假设，本研究将调查碳通量的变化是否与其中一种或几种表面性质的变化具有一致的关系。确定合适的代用品可以在大尺度上对深层碳通量进行长期监测。将现有的遥感、气象和水文数据的时间序列与深层碳通量数据进行比较研究是一种很有前途的方法。这类研究的重点将放在年度以外的时期，因为所有可能的替代候选者都共有的年度周期在揭示因果关系方面价值不大。将对马尾藻海的连续深层碳通量测量结果与该地区的各种水文和气象数据集以及卫星数据进行比较。虽然马尾藻海只是可能具有不同特征代用物和代用碳通量关系的几个主要海洋域中的一个，但即使在部分海洋中通过代用物评估碳通量的能力也可以腾出资源，用于在其他区域进行更深入的原位研究。(2)将完成目前的建模工作，确定不同深度沉积物捕集器收集的源区域和颗粒路径的平均值和时间方差，即使用采样区域的真实和模型电流矢量来描绘连接捕集器和海面的统计漏斗的形状。

This project represents the balance of support required for studies related to time-series sediment trapping in the Sargasso Sea and for assuring continuation of the work beyond the present P.I.'s full-time involvement. The proposed work has two primary objectives: (1) A major portion of the effort will be spent on identifying relationships between surface-ocean variables and deep- ocean carbon flux. The marine biota is thought by many investigators to play an important part in the removal of carbon from the atmosphere and upper ocean to the deep ocean through the production of organic and carbonate particles which sink out of the mixed layer. There is, however, a considerable range in estimates of the effectiveness of this mechanism, the "biological pump", relative to the amounts of carbon dioxide injected into the atmosphere by human activities. An assessment of the magnitude, variability and secular trend of the pump is thus desirable. Direct measurement of deep-ocean carbon flux is far too expensive and labor-intensive to be done on a large scale over extended periods. However, there is a distinct possibility that much more easily monitored surface-ocean properties may serve as proxies for deep carbon flux. To test this hypothesis, this study will investigate whether or not carbon flux varies in a consistent relationship to variations in one or a combination of several of those surface properties. Identification of suitable proxies may permit long-term monitoring of the deep carbon flux on large scales. Comparative studies of existing time series of remote- sensing, meteorologic, and hydrographic data on one hand and of deep carbon-flux data on the other are a promising approach. The emphasis in such studies will be on other-than-annual periods because the annual cycle, common to all likely proxy candidates, is of little value in revealing causative connections. Comparisons will be made between continuous deep carbon-flux measurements in the Sargasso Sea and a superior variety of hydrographic and meteorologic data sets, as well as satellite data, for the area. While the Sargasso Sea is representative of only one of several major oceanographic domains which are likely to have different characteristic proxies and proxy-carbon flux relationships, the ability to assess carbon flux by means of proxies even in part of the ocean can free resources for more intensive in-situ studies in other areas. (2) Present modeling efforts at determining means and time variances of the source areas and paths of particles collected by sediment traps at different depths, i.e. using real and model current vectors in the sampling area to delineate the shapes of the statistical funnels connecting the traps to the sea surface, will be completed.