Because oceans contain over 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere, surface pH is more sensitive to changes in the rates of
upwelling of low - pH, carbon - rich deep waters.
The water here is fairly cold, due to a cold
upwelling from a deep ocean through south of Bali.
It is thought that the poor representation of
ocean upwelling in current models has larger scale impacts reducing the accuracy of model projections on a global scale.
The picture I gave neglects the effect of ocean dynamics — cooling
by upwelled water entering the mixed layer and warming by imported warm water from the side.
Under certain conditions, the trade winds are stronger than normal, causing surface waters in the equatorial Pacific to be colder than average,
with upwelling occurring as far as the Central Pacific.
«All these processes give a taste of the complex interaction between sea ice, biological productivity, and deep water
upwelling as mechanisms controlling CO2 outgassing in the Southern Ocean, particularly at the Antarctic Polar Front, where they are strongly coupled.»
Nutrients, primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, are brought from the land by rivers and are stirred up from the bottom mud by
upwelling currents.
Phytoplankton production is enhanced by strong winds (because they
cause upwelling of nutrients from deeper waters) and diminished by weaker winds, and the scientists found evidence that trade winds were weaker then.
Now, you have
less upwelling cold water to heat up, and you get more warming — as in El Nino (a la 1998).
The California Current System (CCS) contains one of the five major coastal
upwelling zones in the world's oceans, and hosts a great diversity and abundance of marine life [1].
Such hot spots included the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and the nutrient - rich
upwelling regions off the coasts of South America and West Africa.
Continue reading «Influence of ocean acidification and deep water
upwelling on oligotrophic plankton communities in the subtropical North Atlantic: Insights from an in situ mesocosm study»
Climate modeling shows that the trends of warming ocean temperatures, stronger winds and increasingly
strong upwelling events are expected to continue in the coming years as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere increase.
Similarly,
equatorial upwelling associated with the shallow meridional overturning circulation increased in the central Pacific, shoaling the thermocline and contributing to cooling trends in the mixed layer.
The lower stratosphere will warm, and will communicate this warming to the troposphere and ground, while the upper stratosphere will cool because of
reduced upwelling radiation.
More or less cold and nutrient
rich upwelling water driving changing global climate and ecologies.
«Then, about 50 million years ago Australia's separation from Antarctica accelerated and it started moving north - northeast, gradually taking it closer to a vast
mantle upwelling called the South Pacific Superswell,» said co-author Dr Nicolas Flament.
Lowest pH (7.8) and highest pCO2 (658.3 µatm) values measured during a cold - water intrusion event in the non-
upwelling season were similar to those minimum values reported from upwelling season (pH = 7.8, pCO2 = 643.5 µatm), unveiling that natural acidification also occurs sporadically in the non-upwelling season.
Changes in
upwelling occur at 20 to 30 year intervals and have for a very long time.
The 2007 IPCC summary does not include cloud cover as a radiative forcing for
upwelling infrared, only as an abledo effect for downwelling solar radiation.
There is CO2 continually leaving the ocean and entering the atmosphere in places where ocean
upwelling brings carbon - rich waters to the surface.
In the context of the real atmosphere, an observer looking down from space will see Planckian radiation
upwelling at the surface temperature for those wavelengths where the air is very transparent.
Like Monterey Canyon to the north the canyon provides cold, nutrient - rich water to the surface during
upwelling events.
Organisms living in areas
where upwelling of cool, low pH water occurs (e.g. Eastern Pacific and Baltic Sea) may be acclimatized / adapted to acidification [31 — 34], whereas those living in areas with strong warming (e.g. Eastern Australia) may be acclimatized / adapted to increased temperature [7,35].
The dominant large scale oceanic features are: the strong New Guinea Coastal Undercurrent that flows west along the coast at about 200 metres depth; the New Guinea Coastal Current that reverses with the monsoons; and a wind - driven
upwelling plume during the SE monsoon that spreads along the PNG coast (Cresswell, 2000).
In a process
called upwelling, those cold waters normally bring up the nutrients that feed the tiny organisms, which form the base of the food chain.
«Areas of greatest vulnerability will likely be where deep waters, naturally low in pH, meet acidified surface waters,» such as areas of coastal
upwelling along the West Coast and in estuary environments such Hood Canal, the new study predicts.
Collectively, coastal
upwelling ecosystems represent only 1 % of the surface waters of the ocean, but they have historically provided 20 % of the fisheries.
EMBRACE will work to quantify the key
upwelling processes and increase model resolution in order to address this issue.