Collaborative SBI Research: Carbon Cycling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas--Field and Modeling Studies

北冰洋西部受到营养物质和低盐度太平洋水向北流动的深刻影响，这些水通过白令海峡和楚科奇陆架和斜坡进入北冰洋盆地。这种流动是全球海洋环流的一个重要组成部分，通过北冰洋将淡水从太平洋输送到大西洋，同时也维持着世界上一些生产力最高的生态系统--白令海和楚科奇海--的生态系统。众所周知，净输运、海冰覆盖和海面温度在季节和年际时间尺度上差异很大，但评估北极生态系统对这些变化以及总体上对全球变化的反应的实验、观测和模拟基础非常缺乏。这一跨学科项目将提供观测和理论框架，以评估楚科奇和波弗特海的碳通量，以应对多变的环境强迫。该项目的一个主要目标是确定北部高纬度十年尺度的环境制度变化对北冰洋西部碳循环的影响。将审查从白令海进口的碳，当地的生产和转化，以及从楚科奇和波弗特大陆架向盆地的出口。该项目将侧重于了解物理和生物过程对水柱和陆架和斜坡底栖生物中碳和其他关键元素(如N、O、Si)通量的影响，以及随后与盆地的交换。该项目已与履行机构方案中的其他研究方案和相关资源相结合。这项研究的最终目标是更全面地了解陆架-盆地交换过程和生物地球化学循环，并建立有助于评估这一哨兵生态系统未来全球变化的基准。

The Western Arctic is profoundly influenced by the northward flux of nutrient andorganic-rich, low salinity Pacific Ocean water that enters the basin through the Bering Strait andacross the Chukchi shelf and slope. This flow, a key component of the global ocean circulation,transports freshwater from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Arctic Ocean while also sustainingsome of the most productive ecosystems in the world, the Bering and Chukchi Seas. Nettransport, sea ice cover and sea surface temperatures are well known to vary greatly overseasonal and interannual time scales, but the experimental, observational, and modeling bases toevaluate the response of Arctic ecosystems to these changes, and to global change in general, arelargely lacking. This interdisciplinary project will provide the observational and theoretical frameworkto evaluate carbon fluxes in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in response to variable environmentalforcing. A main goal of this project is to determine the impact of decadal-scale environmentalregime shifts in the northern high latitudes on carbon cycling in the western Arctic Ocean. Carbon import from the Bering Sea, local production and transformation, and export from the Chukchi and Beaufort shelves to the basin will be examined. This project will focus on understanding the influence of physical and biological processes on fluxes of carbon and other key elements (e.g. N, O, Si) in the water column and benthos of the shelves and slope, and subsequent exchange with the basin. This project hasbeen integrated with other research programs and related resources in the SBI program. The ultimate goal of this study is to obtain a more complete understanding of shelf-basin exchange processes and biogeochemical cycles, and to establish benchmarks useful for assessing future global change of this sentinel ecosystem.