Collaborative Research: A RAPID response to Hurricane Harvey's impacts on coastal carbon cycle, metabolic balance and ocean acidification

了解飓风等极端事件如何影响沿海生态系统以及碳和氧等元素的循环，对于提高我们预测全球碳循环如何响应气候的能力非常重要。这组调查人员已经在一起研究墨西哥湾大陆架的碳循环，他们有重要的近期数据，可以用来衡量2017年8月飓风哈维经过的影响。他们将在9月、10月和1月对墨西哥湾西北部的水域和沉积物进行取样，以评估哈维在数周到数月的时间尺度上的影响。研究人员提出了三个具体问题：1。该地区是否会成为大气中二氧化碳的主要来源，释放积聚在底部水和沉积物中的碳，这种潜在影响是否会比正常的秋冬混合事件更快、更大？这个过程会使地表水酸化吗？会酸化多久？2. 与往年相比，这次风暴是否会导致代谢平衡大幅向净异养方向发展？3. 热带气旋在大陆架上传递或再沉积的物质量是否会比冬季风暴系统大得多？pi将测量水柱营养物、氧、有机碳和无机碳系统参数；确定水柱和底栖生物代谢和养分通量率；以及沉积物有机质沉积速率。他们还将收集末端成员河流样本。他们将比较飓风过后立即（9月中旬）有限的数据和飓风过后一个月更详细的数据与7月和4月收集的数据，以研究风暴的影响。他们还将2017-2018年的季节数据与过去收集的同一地区的季节数据（2006-2008年和2009-2010年）进行比较。他们还将比较飓风哈维与飓风卡特里娜和丽塔（2005年）以及热带风暴辛迪（2017年6月）的影响。该项目将涉及研究生和博士后的研究，并向公众传达研究结果。

Understanding how extreme events, like hurricanes, impact coastal ecosystems and the cycling of elements like carbon and oxygen, is important for improving our ability to predict how the global carbon cycle will respond to climate. This team of investigators, who have already been working together on understanding the carbon cycle in the Gulf of Mexico continental shelves, have important recent data against which to measure the effects of the passage of Hurricane Harvey in August, 2017. They will sample the waters and sediments of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico in September, October, and January to assess Harvey's impacts on a timescale of weeks to months. The researchers pose three specific questions: 1. Will the region become a major source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, releasing carbon accumulated in the bottom water and sediments, and will this potential impact be faster and greater than during normal fall and winter mixing events? Will this process acidify the surface water and for how long? 2. Will the metabolic balance be substantially pushed toward net heterotrophy as a result of the storm in comparison to other years? 3. Can the amount of material delivered or redeposited across the continental shelf by a tropical cyclone be considerably larger than that related to winter storm systems? The PIs will measure water column nutrients, oxygen, organic carbon, and inorganic carbon system parameters; determine water column and benthic metabolic and nutrient flux rates; and sediment organic matter deposition rates. They will also collect end member river samples. They will compare the immediate (mid-Sept) but limited post-hurricane data and one-month post-hurricane, more detailed data with those collected in July and April to study the impacts of the storms. they will also compare 2017-2018 seasonal data to seasonal data over the same region collected in the past (2006-2008 and 2009-2010). They will also compare the impacts of Hurricane Harvey to those of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005) and Tropical Storm Cindy (June 2017). The project will involve graduate and postdoctoral research and work to communicate results to the public.