North American Carbon Program (NACP) and Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) Interim Coastal Carbon Synthesis

沿海边缘对区域和全球碳收支的贡献还没有得到很好的理解，这主要是由于有关沿海沃茨碳源和汇的规模、空间分布和年际变化的信息有限。海洋碳生物地球化学（OCB）计划在过去两年中一直与北美碳计划（NACP）合作，制定沿海临时综合活动，作为NACP临时综合活动的一部分，其目标是汇集相关的观测、数据和建模工作，以确定和量化北美碳预算中的关键源、汇、储量、通量和相关过程。沿海临时综合活动的目标是综合北美大陆边缘不同区域在更广泛的空间和时间尺度上的个体、小尺度观测和建模研究，以改善北美沿海碳预算的定量评估。由于沿海海洋与陆地、大气和开阔洋的生物地球化学循环有着重要而复杂的联系，因此必须让研究人员参与，他们的研究重点是有机碳和无机碳，以及与碳平衡有关的氮和磷循环课题，以及缺氧对大陆边缘的影响等相关问题。通过向伍兹霍尔海洋学研究所（WHOI）提供这一奖项，来自WHOI、阿拉斯加大学-费尔班克斯和南佛罗里达大学的OCB科学家将召开两次研讨会，以促进与五个地区沿海碳预算有关的数据收集和综合工作。东海岸（包括缅因州湾）、西海岸（包括阿拉斯加湾）、墨西哥湾、北极（包括白令、楚科奇、博福特和巴芬-拉布拉多等边缘海）和五大湖。 NASA和NOAA将提供额外资金支持这些努力。更广泛的影响：沿海边缘代表北美碳预算中的一个重要未知数。通过利用两个领先的美国碳循环科学计划（NACP和OCB）的共享社区专业知识，该项目将改善沿海碳汇/源估计，并促进社区互动，以确保陆地和海洋之间的无缝过渡，以了解推动北美碳循环的最重要过程。拟议的方法召集具有区域重要物理和地球化学过程的专业知识的科学家，以制定鲁棒的区域沿海碳预算，更有效地解释沿海系统的一些固有的时空变化。该项目的另一个关键成果将是一个非常有价值的历史数据集，它将提高我们对碳循环的理解，并为有关气候变化、人类健康和渔业问题的公众讨论和政策制定提供信息，所有这些都与碳循环密切相关。恢复这些数据并将其纳入公开访问的数据库将促进沿海地区预测模型的发展，并使陆地，大气和海洋二氧化碳和碳循环模型的联系更加全面。目前在美国大部分沿海地区进行了50年的观测，为监测沿海海洋生态系统的健康状况提供了急需的历史背景，这些生态系统越来越容易受到海洋酸化，富营养化和缺氧的威胁。

The contribution of coastal margins to regional and global carbon budgets isnot well understood, largely due to limited information about the magnitude, spatial distribution,and interannual variability of carbon sources and sinks in coastal waters. The Ocean Carbon &Biogeochemistry (OCB) Program has been collaborating with the North American CarbonProgram (NACP) over the past two years to develop a Coastal Interim Synthesis Activity as partof the NACP Interim Synthesis activities, the goals of which are to bring together relevantobservations, data, and modeling efforts in an effort to identify and quantify key sources, sinks,stocks, fluxes, and associated processes in the North American carbon budget. The objective ofthe Coastal Interim Synthesis Activity is to synthesize individual, small-scale observational andmodeling studies from different regions of the North American continental margin acrossbroader spatial and temporal scales to improve quantitative assessments of the North Americancoastal carbon budget. Because the coastal oceans have important and complex linkages withterrestrial, atmospheric, and open ocean biogeochemical cycles, it is important to provide for the participation of researchers focused on both organic and inorganic carbon, as well as nitrogenand phosphorus cycle topics related to carbon balance and related issues such as hypoxiaimpacts on continental margins.With support through this award to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), OCB scientists from WHOI, the University of Alaska - Fairbanks, and the University of South Florida will convene two workshops to facilitate data gathering and synthesis efforts related to coastal carbon budgets in five regions?East Coast (including Gulf of Maine), West Coast (including Gulf of Alaska), Gulf of Mexico, Arctic (including marginal seas such as the Bering, Chukchi, Beaufort, and Baffin-Labrador), and Great Lakes. Additional funding to support these efforts will be provided by NASA and NOAA.Broader Impacts: Coastal margins represent a significant unknown in the North Americancarbon budget. By leveraging the shared community expertise of two leading U.S. carbon cyclescience programs (NACP and OCB), this project will improve coastal carbon sink/sourceestimates and facilitate the community interaction needed to ensure a seamless transitionbetween land and sea in our understanding of the most important processes driving the NorthAmerican carbon cycle. The proposed approach convenes scientists with specializedknowledge of regionally important physical and biogeochemical processes to develop robustregional coastal carbon budgets that more effectively account for some of the inherent spatialand temporal variability of coastal systems. Another key outcome of this project will be atremendously valuable historic dataset that will improve our understanding of the carbon cycleand inform public discussion and policy making on issues related to climate change, humanhealth, and fisheries, all of which are intimately linked to carbon cycling. Recovery of these dataand their incorporation into a publicly accessible data base will enhance the development ofpredictive models for coastal regions and also enable more comprehensive linkage of land,atmosphere, and ocean modeling of carbon dioxide and the carbon cycle. There are currently50 years of observations in most U.S. coastal regions, providing much-needed historicalcontext to monitor the health of coastal ocean ecosystems, which are becoming increasinglyvulnerable to threats of ocean acidification, eutrophication, and hypoxia.