Collaborative SBI Research: Carbon Cycling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas-Field and Modeling Studies

北极西部受到营养和有机物丰富的低盐度太平洋水向北流动的深刻影响，这些水通过白令海峡和楚科奇大陆架和斜坡进入盆地。这股水流是全球海洋环流的一个关键组成部分，它将淡水从太平洋经北冰洋输送到大西洋，同时也维持着世界上一些最具生产力的生态系统，白令海和楚科奇海。众所周知，净输送、海冰覆盖和海面温度在季节和年际时间尺度上变化很大，但评估北极生态系统对这些变化以及对全球变化的响应的实验、观测和建模基础在很大程度上缺乏。 这一跨学科项目将提供观测和理论框架，以评估楚科奇海和博福特海对可变环境强迫的碳通量。该项目的一个主要目标是确定北方高纬度地区十年级环境状况变化对北冰洋西部碳循环的影响。从白令海的碳进口，当地的生产和转化，以及从楚科奇和博福特大陆架到盆地的出口将被检查。本项目将侧重于了解物理和生物过程对陆架和陆坡水柱和底栖生物中碳和其他关键元素（如氮、氧、硅）通量的影响，以及随后与流域的交换。该项目已与SBI计划中的其他研究项目和相关资源相结合。本研究的最终目标是获得一个更完整的理解陆架盆地交换过程和生物地球化学循环，并建立基准用于评估未来全球变化的哨兵生态系统。

The Western Arctic is profoundly influenced by the northward flux of nutrient andorganic-rich, low salinity Pacific Ocean water that enters the basin through the Bering Strait andacross the Chukchi shelf and slope. This flow, a key component of the global ocean circulation,transports freshwater from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Arctic Ocean while also sustainingsome of the most productive ecosystems in the world, the Bering and Chukchi Seas. Nettransport, sea ice cover and sea surface temperatures are well known to vary greatly overseasonal and interannual time scales, but the experimental, observational, and modeling bases toevaluate the response of Arctic ecosystems to these changes, and to global change in general, arelargely lacking. This interdisciplinary project will provide the observational and theoretical frameworkto evaluate carbon fluxes in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in response to variable environmentalforcing. A main goal of this project is to determine the impact of decadal-scale environmentalregime shifts in the northern high latitudes on carbon cycling in the western Arctic Ocean. Carbon import from the Bering Sea, local production and transformation, and export from the Chukchi and Beaufort shelves to the basin will be examined. This project will focus on understanding the influence of physical and biological processes on fluxes of carbon and other key elements (e.g. N, O, Si) in the water column and benthos of the shelves and slope, and subsequent exchange with the basin. This project hasbeen integrated with other research programs and related resources in the SBI program. The ultimate goal of this study is to obtain a more complete understanding of shelf-basin exchange processes and biogeochemical cycles, and to establish benchmarks useful for assessing future global change of this sentinel ecosystem.