CaNDyFloSS: Carbon and Nutrient Dynamics and Fluxes over Shelf Systems

大片大陆块被广泛的浅海（深度约100 m）包围，称为“陆棚海”。它们是大规模扰动的陆地环境与广阔的开阔海洋海洋系统之间的边界，具有巨大的社会经济意义。它们是人类开发海洋资源的主要区域，包括可再生能源和化石燃料能源、娱乐、贸易和粮食生产。虽然只占全球海洋表面积的5%，但陆架海提供了全球90%的鱼类渔获量，是全球许多人口的重要食物来源。它们还在整个海洋提供的生态系统服务方面发挥重要作用，特别是在储存大气中的碳方面，陆架海的物理和生物化学过程影响到从大气中清除二氧化碳以及随后在深海中储存碳。生物生长从水中吸收碳，然后被大气中的二氧化碳中的碳取代。在大陆架海中，这种增长得到陆地和公海营养源的支持，这意味着陆地生物圈和公海环境在调节大陆架海气候服务方面发挥着密切的作用。海洋也可能是一氧化二氮（N2 O）等其他温室气体的主要排放源或排放汇，据认为，浅海陆棚发挥了关键作用，淹没大陆架的空间范围差异很大。西北欧洲陆架海是最大的，因此很可能发挥重要作用，在海洋生物地球化学循环，同时提供了一个有用的模式，为其他系统然而，即使在这个相对较好的研究区域，我们缺乏一个很好的理解的主要控制循环的碳和主要营养元素，氮，磷和硅。因此，也很难预测这些元素的循环以及它们所支持的碳去除如何被正在进行的和潜在的未来全球变化所改变。我们的建议旨在通过全面研究欧洲西北部大陆架海洋系统整个水体中主要营养物和碳的循环来解决这些不确定性，我们将与一系列伙伴密切合作，对整个欧洲西北部大陆架进行为期一年的观测方案。我们将测量海水中主要形式的碳和营养物质的浓度。将这些与物理水传输和测量的空气和海面之间的气体（特别是CO2和N2 O）的转移相结合，我们将量化陆架海和邻近的深海和大气之间的营养物质和碳的主要通量。这将最终确定该大陆架系统在全球碳和养分循环中的作用。我们还将进行4次专门的研究巡航，重点是了解不同形式的营养素和碳的生物和化学处理的季节性周期。我们将测量光合浮游生物和消耗性浮游生物将营养物质和碳结合到其细胞物质中的速率，以及随后该生物/化学系统的综合活动如何影响主要元素的循环。这将使我们能够了解大陆架系统在全球循环中的作用是如何维持的，这一提案和其他方案工作包提供的综合工作将使我们能够确定西北欧洲大陆架系统可能容易受到当前或未来环境变化影响的方面。这些知识将为决策者和其他利益攸关方提供更好的科学认识和更好的预测工具。

The large continental land masses are surrounded by extensive shallow (ca 100m depth) seas known as the 'shelf seas'. These act as the boundary between the massively perturbed terrestrial environment and the vast open ocean marine system, and have huge socio-economic importance. They are the primary regions of human marine resource exploitation, including both renewable and fossil fuel energy sources, recreation, trade and food production. Although comprising only about 5% of the global ocean surface area, the shelf seas provide 90% of the global fish catches which form an important source of food to much of the global population. They also play an important role in the ecosystem services provided by the oceans as a whole, in particular in storing carbon away from the atmosphere.Physical and biochemical processes in shelf seas influence the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and the subsequent storage of carbon in the deep ocean. Biological growth draws carbon out of the water, which is then replaced by carbon in CO2 from the atmosphere. In the shelf seas this growth is supported by terrestrial and open ocean sources of nutrients, implying intimate roles for both the terrestrial biosphere and the open ocean environment in regulating shelf sea climate services. The oceans can also be a major source or sink for other greenhouse gases, including nitrous oxide (N2O), with the shallow shelf seas thought to play a key role.The spatial extent of the submerged continental shelves varies greatly. The NW European shelf sea is one of the largest and hence is likely to play a significant role in marine biogeochemical cycling, alongside providing a useful model for other systems However, even in this relatively well studied region, we lack a good understanding of the principal controls on the cycling of carbon and the major nutrient elements, nitrogen, phosphorous and silicon. Consequently it is also difficult to predict how the cycling of these elements and hence the carbon removal they support may be altered by ongoing and potential future global change. Our proposal aims to address these uncertainties through a comprehensive study of the cycling of the major nutrients and carbon throughout the water column over the NW European shelf sea system.Through close collaboration with a range of partners, we will undertake a year-long observation programme of the whole NW European continental shelf. We will measure the seawater concentrations of the major forms of carbon and nutrients. Combining these with physical water transports and measured transfer of gases (specifically CO2 and N2O) between the air and sea surface, we will quantify the major fluxes of nutrients and carbon between the shelf sea and both the adjacent deep ocean and atmosphere. This will definitively establish the role of this shelf system in the global carbon and nutrient cycles. We will also undertake 4 dedicated research cruises focused on understanding the seasonal cycle of biological and chemical processing of the different forms of the nutrients and carbon. We will measure the rates at which both the photosynthetic and consumer plankton incorporate nutrients and carbon into their cellular material, and subsequently how the combined activity of this biological/chemical system influences the cycling of the major elements. This will allow us to understand the ways in which the role of the shelf system in global cycles is maintained.The combined work delivered by both this proposal and the other programme workpackages will allow us to identify aspects of the NW European shelf system which may be susceptible to ongoing or future environmental changes. Such knowledge will provide both enhanced scientific understanding and improved predictive tools for policy makers and other stakeholders.