Integrating Drivers of Atlantic Productivity (IDAPro)

整合大西洋生产力驱动因素 (IDAPro)

• 批准号: NE/Y00423X/1
• 负责人: Daniel Mayor
• 金额: $ 57.46万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FY00423X%2F1
• 关键词: Integrating; Drivers; Atlantic; Productivity; IDAPro

The open ocean ecosystems which dominate the surface of our planet are all dependent on the generation of new organic matter by single celled organisms which are collectively termed phytoplankton. These organisms use light, nutrients and carbon dioxide to grow through a process termed primary production. In addition to forming the base of the marine food web, the collective primary production by these organisms is ultimately responsible for ocean biology keeping atmospheric carbon dioxide levels around 30-40% lower than they would otherwise be, thus exerting a significant impact on global climate. Understanding how primary production may vary in the future is thus important for predicting the ongoing response of both ocean ecosystems and carbon cycling to climate change. The abundance and activity of phytoplankton in the upper ocean is always a balance between growth rates (determined by the availability of resources) and loss rates including through grazing by organisms collectively termed zooplankton and mortality due to viruses and direct sinking. However, the factors determining both growth and loss dynamically vary both across the different regions of the ocean and throughout the annual cycle in complex and interacting ways. We currently try and capture the knowledge necessary to predict future changes in primary production using numerical models of these interacting processes. However, our current state-of-the-art models differ substantially in their predictions of future change due to the differing ways they represent a variety of these key processes.Focusing on an important region of the ocean for biological carbon storage, the mid-high latitude North Atlantic, our proposal aims to make exciting new year-round observations of primary production and the controlling factors using a combination of satellite, ship-based and novel robotic platforms. We will augment these observations with detailed experimental work undertaken at sea, alongside targeted numerical modelling, in order to generate an improved understanding of the balance between controls on growth and loss and, crucially, establish how this varies over the dynamic seasonal cycle. Data from our observations and experiments will allow us to establish key drivers of the magnitude and seasonal changes in primary production and link these to the overall controls on the efficiency of ocean carbon storage across a broad region of the North Atlantic Ocean. In addition to providing new understanding, our research will generate improved data sets of rates of growth and loss, providing more rigorous constraints for numerical models and hence pointing the way towards more confident predictions of future primary production and carbon cycle responses to climate change.

主宰地球表面的开放海洋生态系统都依赖于单细胞生物产生新的有机物，这些生物统称为浮游植物。这些生物利用光线、营养物质和二氧化碳，通过一种被称为初级生产的过程进行生长。除了构成海洋食物网的基础外，这些生物的集体初级生产最终对海洋生物将大气二氧化碳水平保持在比没有这些生物的情况下低30%-40%左右负责，从而对全球气候产生重大影响。因此，了解初级生产力在未来可能如何变化，对于预测海洋生态系统和碳循环对气候变化的持续反应非常重要。上层海洋中浮游植物的丰度和活动总是在增长率(由资源的可获得性决定)和损失率之间取得平衡，包括通过统称为浮游动物的生物的放牧和因病毒和直接下沉造成的死亡。然而，决定增长和损失的因素在海洋的不同区域和整个年度循环中都以复杂和相互作用的方式动态变化。目前，我们试图利用这些相互作用的过程的数值模型，获取预测初级生产未来变化所需的知识。然而，我们目前最先进的模型对未来变化的预测存在很大差异，因为它们表示这些关键过程的方式不同。我们的提案聚焦于海洋中高纬度北大西洋这一重要的生物碳储存区域，旨在利用卫星、船基和新型机器人平台的组合，对初级生产力和控制因素进行令人兴奋的全年新观测。我们将通过在海上进行的详细实验工作以及有针对性的数值模拟来加强这些观察，以便更好地了解对增长和损失的控制之间的平衡，并至关重要的是，确定这种平衡如何在动态的季节性周期中变化。我们的观察和实验数据将使我们能够确定初级生产量和季节变化的关键驱动因素，并将这些与北大西洋广大区域海洋碳储存效率的总体控制联系起来。除了提供新的理解，我们的研究还将产生更好的增长率和损失率的数据集，为数字模型提供更严格的约束，从而为更有信心地预测未来初级生产力和碳循环对气候变化的反应指明了方向。