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将如何应对气候的能力非常重要。这组调查人员已经在合作了解墨西哥湾大陆架的碳循环，他们拥有重要的近期数据，可以对照这些数据来衡量2017年8月飓风哈维的影响。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采样，以评估哈维的影响，时间尺度为几周到几个月。研究人员提出了三个具体的问题：1.该地区是否会成为大气中二氧化碳的主要来源，释放积累在底层水和沉积物中的碳，以及这种潜在的影响是否会比正常的秋季和冬季混合事件更快、更大？这一过程会使地表水酸化吗？持续多长时间？2.与其他年份相比，新陈代谢平衡是否会被大幅推向净异养？3.热带气旋向大陆架输送或重新沉积的物质数量是否会比与冬季风暴系统有关的物质数量大得多？PIs将测量水柱营养物质、氧、有机碳和无机碳系统参数；确定水柱和底栖生物代谢和营养物质通量速率；以及沉积物有机物质沉积速率。他们还将收集终端成员的河流样本。他们将立即(9月中旬)但有限的飓风后数据和飓风后一个月的更详细数据与7月和4月收集的数据进行比较，以研究风暴的影响。他们还将把2017-2018年的季节性数据与过去(2006-2008年和2009-2010年)收集的同一地区的季节性数据进行比较。他们还将比较飓风哈维的影响与卡特里娜和丽塔飓风(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研究，并努力将结果传达给公众。

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.