High Resolution Observing of Arctic Net Community Productivity with Ships of Opportunity

北极变暖的速度大约是全球其他地区的两倍，这导致了环境的显著变化。这些变化包括海冰面积的下降和夏季北冰洋大片无冰的较长时间，这两种变化都有可能影响北冰洋生态系统底部的微型植物的生长。生长时间、地点或数量的变化将对食物链上游的生物产生影响，有可能影响居住在北极海岸线的土著居民至关重要的生存和文化资源。此外，北极生态系统有助于促进二氧化碳气体从大气转移到深海水域，这有助于降低大气中的二氧化碳水平。该项目旨在描述浮游植物生长的模式，以及它们可能如何受到北极变化的影响。虽然北极系统对气候变暖的反应的许多方面可以通过卫星或系泊传感器进行远程监测，但综合海洋生态系统反应的观测历来不太容易获得所需的规模。这一观察差距阻碍了理解和模拟物理系统变化对北极生态系统中碳和能量流动的潜在影响，并阻碍了理解生物促进的大气和海洋之间的碳交换未来可能发生的变化。该项目将直接解决这一观测差距。将使用高分辨率溶解气体示踪方法(O2/Ar)来限制净群落生产力(NCP)的速率，NCP是衡量生态系统功能和生物促进的气海二氧化碳交换的重要指标，在整个受太平洋影响的北极地区，机会船以前所未有的空间和时间分辨率进行。该项目将用仪器加强已经在太平洋北极地区进行研究的船只的流经表层海水系统，以在对其他科学活动影响最小的情况下获得亚公里级分辨率的O2/Ar基NCP。这一高分辨率的覆盖范围将有助于确定对控制整个研究区域的净增长模式非常重要的过程。为了扩大生物比率信息的空间和时间覆盖面，该项目将在四年期间每年进行三次巡航数据收集工作。最初，数据采集将需要一名专门的技术员与仪器一起航行，但次要项目目标是优化仪器和协议，使未来的数据可以在几乎无人值守的模式下收集，类似于极大地促进了对海-气二氧化碳通量的全球观测的快速扩展的战略。将特别强调在项目过程中收集的数据的快速传播，以最大限度地提高与该地区其他资助研究的协同效应。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Arctic is warming at roughly twice the pace of the rest of the globe, leading to pronounced changes to the environment. These changes include declining sea-ice extent and a longer period in summer when large swaths of the Arctic Ocean are ice-free, both of which have the potential to influence growth of microscopic plants at the base of Arctic Ocean ecosystems. Shifts in timing, location, or amount of growth will have consequences for organisms higher up the food chain, with potential to impact vital subsistence and cultural resources for Indigenous populations that inhabit Arctic coastlines. In addition, Arctic ecosystems help to facilitate the transfer of carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere into deep ocean waters, which helps to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. This project is aimed at characterizing patterns of phytoplankton growth and how they might be influenced by Arctic change. While many aspects of Arctic system responses to warming can be monitored remotely with satellites or moored sensors, observations of integrated ocean ecosystem response have historically been less tractable to obtain at needed scales. This observing gap is a hindrance to understanding and modeling the potential implications of physical system change for carbon and energy flows through Arctic ecosystems, and to understanding how biologically-facilitated exchange of carbon between atmosphere and ocean might change in the future. This project will directly address this observing gap. A high-resolution dissolved gas tracer approach (O2/Ar) will be used to constrain rates of net community productivity (NCP), an important metric of ecosystem function and biologically-facilitated air-sea CO2 exchange, at unprecedented space and time resolution throughout the Pacific-influenced Arctic on ships of opportunity. The project will augment flow-through surface seawater systems of vessels already conducting research in the Pacific Arctic region with instruments to obtain O2/Ar-based NCP at sub-kilometer scale resolution with minimal impact to other science activities. This high-resolution coverage will enable identification of processes that are important in controlling net growth patterns throughout the study area. To expand spatial and temporal coverage of biological rate information, the project will target data collection efforts on three cruises per year over a four-year period. Initially, data acquisition will require a dedicated technician sailing with the instrument, but a secondary project goal is to optimize instrumentation and protocols such that future data could be collected in a near-unattended mode, similar to the strategy that has greatly facilitated the rapid expansion of global observations of air-sea CO2 flux. A special emphasis will be placed on rapid dissemination of data collected over the course of the project to maximize synergies with other funded research in the region.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.