Project: US GEOTRACES GP17-OCE and GP17-ANT: Inorganic Carbon Cycling in the South Pacific and Southern Oceans by Direct Measurement

NSF Award Abstract
The oceans help to slow climate change by absorbing about a quarter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by burning of fossil fuels and other human activities. The Pacific and Southern Oceans are known to take up and store significant amounts of anthropogenic CO2, but many questions regarding the amount, variability, and biogeochemical and ecological impacts remain unanswered. This research will focus on answering some of those questions in two areas of the Pacific by analyzing samples for total CO2, total alkalinity, and pH on two GEOTRACES cruises, GP17-OCE and GP17-ANT. The project will support several undergraduate student researchers and create educational modules on ocean acidification for general public and K-12 students.

On the GP17-OCE expedition in the south Pacific, sub-decadal scale variability in the uptake of CO2 and resulting decrease in pH (termed ocean acidification) will be examined by comparing data collected on this expedition with data from prior occupations of the line in 1991, 2005 and 2014. An extended multilinear regression technique will be used to separate natural variability from human induced changes. The second expedition, GP17-ANT, covers the Amundsen Sea, an area with few prior carbon measurements. This sea is perennially ice-covered with several seasonal polynyas (areas of open water surrounded by sea ice) and exhibits complex water circulation making the contribution to the global carbon cycle uncertain. The data collected from this expedition will examine several hypotheses regarding how carbon is taken up, mixed, and recirculated in the region, how glacial ice melt, sea ice, and biological productivity influence the carbon cycle, and provide baseline measurements against future data to determine changes in the carbon cycle of the region over time. Both expeditions will leverage the myriad of other parameters being measured, particularly trace metals such as iron and zinc, to examine how cycling of carbon and trace metals are interlinked through pH.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.