Why the ocean has absorbed more carbon over the past decade

With the ocean absorbing more carbon dioxide (CO2) over the past decade, less of the greenhouse gas is reaching the Earth's atmosphere. That's decidedly good news, but it comes with a catch: Rising levels of CO2 in the ocean promote acidification, which breaks down the calcium carbonate shells of some marine organisms.

Geographers have determined why the ocean has absorbed more carbon over the past decade.

Credit: Copyright Michele Hogan

The cause of this recent increase in oceanic CO2 uptake, which has implications for climate change, has been a mystery. But new research from UC Santa Barbara geographer Timothy DeVries and colleagues demonstrates that a slowdown of the ocean's overturning circulation is the likely catalyst. Their findings appear in the journal Nature.

"Such a slowdown is consistent with the projected effects of anthropogenic climate change, where warming and freshening of the surface ocean from melting ice caps leads to weaker overturning circulation," DeVries explained. "But over the time periods we studied, it's not possible to say whether the slowdown is related to natural climate variability or to climate change caused by human activity."

DeVries and fellow researchers Mark Holzer of the University of New South Wales in Sydney and François Primeau of UC Irvine compiled existing oceanographic tracer data -- measurements of temperature, salinity, CFCs (humanmade gases that dissolve into the ocean) and carbon-14 -- and separated it into three decade-long time periods: the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s.

Subsequent computer analysis of that data enabled the researchers to characterize ocean circulation -- the transfer of water from the surface to the deep ocean and back again -- for each time period. They then analyzed ocean-atmosphere carbon exchange and ocean carbon cycling within their circulation model.

"As the circulation changed from decade to decade -- 1980s to 1990s to 2000s -- the model predicted a big dip in oceanic CO2uptake during the 1990s, then a large increase in uptake during the 2000s," DeVries explained. "Furthermore, these swings were attributed directly to the changes in ocean circulation."

According to DeVries, this finding may seem counterintuitive. Prevailing scientific wisdom asserts that the deceleration of circulation diminishes the ocean's ability to absorb anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere as surface waters warm and become saturated with CO2.

"While that is true, there is another effect that appears to be more important in the short term," DeVries said. "The weaker overturning circulation brings less naturally CO2-rich deep waters to the surface, which limits how much of that gas in the deep ocean escapes to the atmosphere. That causes the ocean to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere."

sciencedaily.com

Comments

Reproduction of Deuteromycetes

F ungi that reproduce asexually (anamorphic fungi ) are either yeasts or Deu-teromycetes. The term "yeast" is descriptive and stands for any fungus that reproduces by budding. Deuteromycetes (Fungi imperfecti, colloquially: molds) is an artificial as-semblage of fungi that reproduce asexually by conidia (conidiospores), either as the only form for propagation (imperfect fungi) or additionally (anamorph) to a sexual reproduction (teleomorph). When both the anamorph and the teleo-morph are known, the fungus is called a holomorph (the whole fungus). The teleomorph may have one (mono-anamorphic) or many (pleo-anamorphic) asexual stages. In other words: Deuteromycetes are the conidia-producing forms of a fungus and may or may not be associated with a teleomorph. Many Deuteromycetes are supposed to have a teleomorph in the Ascomycetes, but they may also have basidiomycetous affinity. Also in the wood-inhabiting Deuteromycetes, the teleomorph often is of ascomycetous a...

What shapes the peer review landscape in ecology?

It was great to be discussing the future of peer review with researchers at the recent peer review panel discussion organised by the British Ecological Society (BES) at their annual conference in Liverpool last week. Jane Hill (Professor of Ecology at the University of York and Chair of BES Publications Committee) chaired the debate, and we heard from Allen Moore (Editor-in-Chief, Ecology and Evolution), Patricia Morse (Managing Editor, American Naturalist ), Nate Sanders (Senior Editor, Journal of Animal Ecology ), Andy Robertson (Senior Vice President & Managing Director, Society Services, Wiley) and me. We started with a discussion of ways in which the publishing process could be opened up, with Allen advocating open science principles and pre-registration of research. Nate also shared his experience in the value of “opening up” research online to get people talking and to generate new ideas. Andy Robertson suggested that partnering w...

Islands

H ow often have you seen those wonderful advertisements inviting you to have a holiday on a tropical island ( Fig. )What is it about islands, whether in the tropics or polar regions, that suggests romance, excitement and adventure? Is it because of a sense of escape from the pressures and stress of a bustling way of life, or the opportunity to savour sun-soaked beaches, or the adventure of rocky unexplored shores, or perhaps the chance of seeing unique island wildlife? It is for all these reasons that there is a growing tourist industry for many islands around the world. The wildlife of islands, especially oceanic islands , has long been of special significance in biology , ecology , conservation and biogeography. Studies of island species have also been of historical significance for evolutionary biology. Many of the world's islands have high levels of endemic flora and fauna; that is, taxa found only on a particular island and no other place. Isla...

Red Streaking

Red Streaking Red-streaking discoloration (known as "Rotstreifigkeit" in Germany) is one of the most common and important damage in seasoning logs and sawn lumber, occurring only in conifers (spruce, pine, fir) and recognized as a distinct con-dition in continental Europe. The stripe-shaped to spotted yellow to reddish-brown discoloration extends in logs from both their bark-covered faces and from their cut ends (Butin 1995; Baum and Bariska 2002) . Stems that are not debarked show a rather flat discoloration and debarked stems exhibit a streakier staining (v. Pechmann et al. 1967). Causal agents are several white-rot Basidiomycetes, in spruce particularly Stereum sanguinolentum (Kleist and Seehann 1997) and Amylostereum areola-turn. In south Germany, Amylostereum chailettii is common (Zycha and Knopf 1963; v. Pechmann et al. 1967). In pine, red streaking is mainly due to Trichap-turn abietinum (Butin 1995). According to Kreisel (1961), S. sanguinolentum and T...

Ecosia ; Ecology Search

https://www.ecosia.org/ How it works You search the web with Ecosia. Ads Search ads generate income for Ecosia. Ecosia uses this income to plant trees. httpecologicaljournal.blogspot.com Ecosia about video

Bioenergetics

T housands of chemical reactions occur throughout the body during each minute of the day. Collec-tively, these reactions are called metabolism. Metab-olism includes chemical pathways that result in the synthesis of molecules (anabolic reactions) as well as the breakdown of molecules (catabolic reactions). Since energy is required by all cells, it is not sur-prising that cells possess chemical pathways that are capable of converting foodstuffs (i.e., fats, proteins, carbohydrates) into a biologically usable form of energy . This metabolic process is termed bioenergetics. In order for you to run, jump, or swim, skeletal muscle cells must be able to continuously extract energy from food nutrients. In fact, the inability to transform energy contained in foodstuffs into usable biological energy would limit performance in endurance activities. The explanation for this is simple. To continue to contract, muscle cells must have a continuous source of energy. When energy is not...

White Rot

W hite-rot research has been reviewed by Ericksson et al. (1990) and Mess-ner et al. (2003). White rot means the degradation of cellulose, hemicellu-loses, and lignin usually by Basidiomycetes and rarely by Ascomycetes, e.g., Kretzschmaria deusta and Xylaria hypoxylon. White rot has been classified by macroscopic characteristics into white-pocket, white-mottled, and white-stringy, the different types being affected by the fungal species, wood species, and ecological conditions. From microscopic and ultrastructural investiga-tions, two main types of white rot have been distinguished (Liese 1970). In the simultaneous white rot ("corrosion rot"), carbohydrates and lignin are almost uniformly degraded at the same time and at a similar rate during all decay stages. Typical fungi with simultaneous white rot are Fomes fomentar-ws, Phellinus igniarius, Phellinus robustus, and Trametes versicolor in standing trees and stored hardwoods (Blanchette 1984a). Wood d...

Soft Rot

The term " soft rot " was originally used by Findlay and Savory (1954) to describe a specific type of wood decay caused by Ascomycetes and Deuteromycetes which typically produce chains of cavities within the S2 layer of soft- and hardwoods in terrestrial and aquatic environments (Liese 1955), for example when the wood-fill in cooling towers became destroyed despite water saturation, and when poles broke, although they were protected against Basidiomvcetes. About 300 species (Seehann et al. 1975) to some 1,600 examples of ascomvcete and deuteromvcete fungi (Eaton and Hale 1993) cause soft rot, e.g., Chaeromium globosurn (Takahashi 1978), Hurnicola spp., Lecythophora hoffrnannii, Monodictys putredinis, Paecilornyces spp., and Thielavia terrestris. Soft-rot fungi differ from brown-rot and white-rot Basidiomycetes by grow-ing mainly inside the woody cell wall trate, starting from the tracheidal lumina., by means of thin perforation hyphae of less than 0.5 pm thickne...

Antagonists, Synergists, and Succession

Interactions (reciprocal effects) between wood fungi have been early investi-gated e.g., by Oppermann (1951) and Leslie et al. (1976), and were described in detail by Rayner and Boddy (1988). Antagonism (competitive reciprocal effect), the mutual inhibition and in a broader sense the inhibition of one organism by others, is based on the pro-duction of toxic metabolites, on mycoparasitism, and on nutrient competition. Antagonisms are investigated as alternative to the chemical protection against tree fungi ("biological forest protection") and against fungi on wood in service ("biological wood protection") (Walchli 1982; Bruce 1992; Holdenrieder and Greig 1998; Phillips-Laing et al. 2003). As early as 1934, Weindling showed the inhibiting effect of Trichoderma species on several fungi. Bjerkandera adusta and Ganoderma species were antagonistic against the causing agent of Plane canker stain disease (Grosclaude et al...

Sexual Reproduction

A specific feature of the sexual reproduction of Ascomycetes and Basid-iomycetes is that plasmogamy of haploid cells and karyogamy of two nuclei (n) to form a diploid nucleus (2n) are separated from each other temporally as well spatially by the dikaryophase (two-nuclei phase, dikaryon, n + n, ===) (Fig.1). A dikaryotic hypha is one with two nuclei that derive from two haploid hyphae, but in which the nuclei are not yet fused by karyogamy. Particularly in Basidiomycetes, the dikaryotic phase is considerably ex-tended. By conjugated division of the two nuclei (conjugated mitosis), by division of the dikaryotic hypha, and by means of a special nucleus migration connested with camp formation both daughter cells become again dikaryotic. Ascomycetes The life cycle of a typical ascomycete is shown in Fig.1 (also Muller and Loeffler 1992; Eaton and Hale 1993; Schwantes 1996; Jennings and Lysek 1999). Haploid (n) spores (A, ascospores or conidia from an anamorph) ge...

Ecological world

Search This Blog