Martin Losch

Deep carbon export from a Southern Ocean iron-fertilized diatom bloom

Fertilization of the ocean by adding iron compounds has induced diatom-dominated phytoplankton blooms accompanied by considerable carbon dioxide drawdown in the ocean surface layer. However, because the fate of bloom biomass could not be adequately resolved in these experiments, the timescales of carbon sequestration from the atmosphere are uncertain. Here we report the results of a five-week experiment carried out in the closed core of a vertically coherent, mesoscale eddy of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, during which we tracked sinking particles from the surface to the deep-sea floor. A large diatom bloom peaked in the fourth week after fertilization. This was followed by mass mortality of several diatom species that formed rapidly sinking, mucilaginous aggregates of entangled cells and chains. Taken together, multiple lines of evidence—although each with important uncertainties—lead us to conclude that at least half the bloom biomass sank far below a depth of 1,000 metres and that a substantial portion is likely to have reached the sea floor. Thus, iron-fertilized diatom blooms may sequester carbon for timescales of centuries in ocean bottom water and for longer in the sediments.

Testing a marine ecosystem model: sensitivity analysis and parameter optimization

A data assimilation technique is used with a simple but widely used marine ecosystem model to optimize poorly known model parameters. A thorough analysis of the a posteriori errors to be expected for the estimated parameters was carried out. The errors have been estimated by calculating the Hessian matrices for different problem formulations based on identical twin experiments. The error analysis revealed inadequacies in the formulation of the optimization problem and insufficiencies of the applied data set. Modifications of the actual problem formulation, which improved the accuracy of the estimated parameters considerably, are discussed. The optimization procedure was applied to real measurements of nitrate and chlorophyll at the Atlantic Bermuda site. The parameter optimization gave poor results. We suggest this to be due to features of the ecosystem that are unresolved by the present model formulation. Our results emphasize the necessity of an error analysis to accompany any parameter optimization study.

Seasonally different carbon flux changes in the Southern Ocean in response to the southern annular mode

Stratospheric ozone depletion and emission of greenhouse gases lead to a trend of the southern annular mode (SAM) toward its high-index polarity. The positive phase of the SAM is characterized by stronger than usual westerly winds that induce changes in the physical carbon transport. Changes in the natural carbon budget of the upper 100 m of the Southern Ocean in response to a positive SAM phase are explored with a coupled ecosystem-general circulation model and regression analysis. Previously overlooked processes that are important for the upper ocean carbon budget during a positive SAM period are identified, namely, export production and downward transport of carbon north of the polar front (PF) as large as the upwelling in the south. The limiting micronutrient iron is brought into the surface layer by upwelling and stimulates phytoplankton growth and export production but only in summer. This leads to a drawdown of carbon and less summertime outgassing (or more uptake) of natural CO2. In winter, biological mechanisms are inactive, and the surface ocean equilibrates with the atmosphere by releasing CO2. In the annual mean, the upper ocean region south of the PF loses more carbon by additional export production than by the release of CO2 into the atmosphere, highlighting the role of the biological carbon pump in response to a positive SAM event.

Adjoint sensitivities of sub-ice-shelf melt rates to ocean circulation under the Pine Island Ice Shelf, West Antarctica

Abstract We investigate the sensitivity of sub-ice-shelf melt rates under Pine Island Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, to changes in the oceanic state using an adjoint ocean model that is capable of representing the flow in sub-ice-shelf cavities. The adjoint code is based on algorithmic differentiation (AD) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s ocean general circulation model (MITgcm). The adjoint model was extended by adding into the AD process the corresponding sub-ice-shelf cavity code, which implements a three-equation thermodynamic melt-rate parameterization to infer heat and freshwater fluxes at the ice-shelf/ocean boundary. The inferred sensitivities reveal dominant timescales of 30–60 days over which the shelf exit is connected to the deep interior via advective processes. They exhibit rich three-dimensional time-evolving patterns that can be understood in terms of a combination of the buoyancy forcing by inflowing water masses, the cavity geometry and the effect of rotation and topography in steering the flow in the presence of prominent features in the bedrock bathymetry. Dominant sensitivity pathways are found over a sill, as well as ‘shadow regions’ of very low sensitivities. To the extent that these transient patterns are robust they carry important information for decision-making in observation deployment and monitoring.

How Sensitive are Coarse General Circulation Models to Fundamental Approximations in the Equations of Motion

The advent of high-precision gravity missions presents the opportunity to accurately measure variations in the distribution of mass in the ocean. Such a data source will prove valuable in state estimation and constraining general circulation models (GCMs) in general. However, conventional GCMs make the Boussinesq approximations, a consequence of which is that mass is not conserved. By use of the height‐pressure coordinate isomorphism implemented in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model (MITGCM), the impact of non-Boussinesq effects can be evaluated. Although implementing a non-Boussinesq model in pressure coordinates is relatively straightforward, making a direct comparison between height and pressure coordinate (i.e., Boussinesq and non-Boussinesq) models is not simple. However, a careful comparison of the height coordinate and the pressure coordinate solutions ensures that only non-Boussinesq effects can be responsible for the observed differences. As a yardstick, these differences are also compared with those between the Boussinesq hydrostatic and models in which the hydrostatic approximation has been relaxed, another approximation commonly made in GCMs. Model errors (differences) caused by the Boussinesq and hydrostatic approximations are demonstrated to be of comparable magnitude. Differences induced by small changes in subgrid-scale parameterizations are at least as large. Therefore, non-Boussinesq and nonhydrostatic effects are most likely negligible with respect to other model uncertainties. However, because there is no additional cost incurred in using a pressure coordinate model, it is argued that non-Boussinesq modeling is preferable simply for tidiness. It is also concluded that even coarse-resolution GCMs can be sensitive to small perturbations in the dynamical equations.

Bottom Topography as a Control Variable in an Ocean Model

The possibility of using topography in a state estimation context as a control parameter is explored in a linear barotropic shallow water model. Along with its adjoint, the model is used to systematically assess the influence of the depth field on the modeled circulation in a steady state. Sensitivity of the flow field to the topography is greater in a partially blocked zonal channel than in a subtropical gyre. Hypothetical surface elevations are used to represent the types of data actually available. In neither case can all the details of the topography be recovered, showing that the relationship between topography and elevation does not have a unique inverse, and that many details of the topography are irrelevant to the particular physics under consideration.

Adjoint Sensitivity of an Ocean General Circulation Model to Bottom Topography

Abstract Bottom topography, or more generally the geometry of the ocean basins, is an important ingredient in numerical ocean modeling. With the help of an adjoint model, it is shown that scalar diagnostics or objective functions in a coarse-resolution model, such as the transport through Drake Passage, the strength of the Atlantic Ocean meridional overturning circulation, the Deacon cell, and the meridional heat transport across 32°S, are sensitive to bottom topography as much as they are to surface boundary conditions. For example, adjoint topography sensitivities of the transport through Drake Passage are large in choke-point areas such as the Crozet–Kerguelen Plateau and south of New Zealand; the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is sensitive to topography in the western boundary region of the North Atlantic Ocean and along the Scotland–Iceland Ridge. Many sensitivities are connected to steep topography and can be interpreted in terms of bottom form stress, that is, the product of bottom pre...

Dynamics of a Snowball Earth Ocean

Geological evidence suggests that marine ice extended to the Equator at least twice during the Neoproterozoic era (about 750 to 635 million years ago), inspiring the Snowball Earth hypothesis that the Earth was globally ice-covered. In a possible Snowball Earth climate, ocean circulation and mixing processes would have set the melting and freezing rates that determine ice thickness, would have influenced the survival of photosynthetic life, and may provide important constraints for the interpretation of geochemical and sedimentological observations. Here we show that in a Snowball Earth, the ocean would have been well mixed and characterized by a dynamic circulation, with vigorous equatorial meridional overturning circulation, zonal equatorial jets, a well developed eddy field, strong coastal upwelling and convective mixing. This is in contrast to the sluggish ocean often expected in a Snowball Earth scenario owing to the insulation of the ocean from atmospheric forcing by the thick ice cover. As a result of vigorous convective mixing, the ocean temperature, salinity and density were either uniform in the vertical direction or weakly stratified in a few locations. Our results are based on a model that couples ice flow and ocean circulation, and is driven by a weak geothermal heat flux under a global ice cover about a kilometre thick. Compared with the modern ocean, the Snowball Earth ocean had far larger vertical mixing rates, and comparable horizontal mixing by ocean eddies. The strong circulation and coastal upwelling resulted in melting rates near continents as much as ten times larger than previously estimated. Although we cannot resolve the debate over the existence of global ice cover, we discuss the implications for the nutrient supply of photosynthetic activity and for banded iron formations. Our insights and constraints on ocean dynamics may help resolve the Snowball Earth controversy when combined with future geochemical and geological observations.

Simulation of subice shelf melt rates in a general circulation model: Velocity‐dependent transfer and the role of friction

Two parameterizations of turbulent boundary layer processes at the interface between an ice shelf and the ocean beneath are investigated in terms of their impact on simulated melt rates and feedbacks. The parameterizations differ in the transfer coefficients for heat and freshwater fluxes. In their simplest form, they are assumed constant and hence are independent of the velocity of ocean currents at the ice shelf base. An augmented melt rate parameterization accounts for frictional turbulence via transfer coefficients that do depend on boundary layer current velocities via a drag law. In simulations with both parameterizations for idealized as well as realistic cavity geometries under Pine Island Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, significant differences in melt rate patterns between the velocity-independent and velocity-dependent formulations are found. While patterns are strongly correlated to those of thermal forcing for velocity-independent transfer coefficients, melting in the case of velocity-dependent coefficients is collocated with regions of high boundary layer currents, in particular where rapid plume outflow occurs. Both positive and negative feedbacks between melt rates, boundary layer temperature, velocities, and buoyancy fluxes are identified. Melt rates are found to increase with increasing drag coefficient inline image, in agreement with plume model simulations, but optimal values of Cd inferred from plume models are not easily transferable. Uncertainties therefore remain, both regarding simulated melt rate spatial distributions and magnitudes.

On the Sensitivity of Field Reconstruction and Prediction Using Empirical Orthogonal Functions Derived from Gappy Data

AbstractEmpirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis is commonly used in the climate sciences and elsewhere to describe, reconstruct, and predict highly dimensional data fields. When data contain a high percentage of missing values (i.e., gappy), alternate approaches must be used in order to correctly derive EOFs. The aims of this paper are to assess the accuracy of several EOF approaches in the reconstruction and prediction of gappy data fields, using the Galapagos Archipelago as a case study example. EOF approaches included least squares estimation via a covariance matrix decomposition [least squares EOF (LSEOF)], data interpolating empirical orthogonal functions (DINEOF), and a novel approach called recursively subtracted empirical orthogonal functions (RSEOF). Model-derived data of historical surface chlorophyll-a concentrations and sea surface temperature, combined with a mask of gaps from historical remote sensing estimates, allowed for the creation of true and observed fields by which to gauge the ...