US EditionMarine Heatwaves Disrupt Ocean's Carbon Storage System
- A Nature Communications paper shows Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute researchers combined GO-BGC float records and plankton surveys in the Gulf of Alaska to find marine heat waves reshaped food webs and slowed deep-sea carbon transport.
- Researchers found marine heat waves altered the base of the ocean food web, linking changes to carbon cycling after two successive events: 'The Blob' and the 2019–2020 marine heat wave.
- In 2013–2015, photosynthetic plankton produced high surface carbon, but small particles piled up near 200 meters, and Mariana Bif said, `Our research found that these two major marine heat waves altered plankton communities and disrupted the ocean's biological carbon pump. The conveyor belt carrying carbon from the surface to the deep sea jammed, increasing the risk that carbon can return to the atmosphere instead of being locked away deep in the ocean,' said Bif.
- In 2023, the global ocean CO₂ absorption fell around ten percent short, leaving more CO₂ in the atmosphere, Galen McKinley said, while researchers warn the marine carbon sink's future remains uncertain.
- Researchers emphasised the need for long-term ocean monitoring as physical and biological compensating processes limited CO₂ loss, but scientists are unsure those processes will persist, Mariana Bif said.
21 Articles
21 Articles
Marine heatwaves modulate food webs and carbon transport processes
Marine heatwave (MHW) impacts on ecosystem functions and services remain poorly constrained due to limited time-resolved datasets integrating physical, chemical, and biological parameters at relevant scales. Here we show that combining over a decade of autonomous Biogeochemical (BGC)-Argo float measurements with water-column plankton community profiles reveals the impacts of MHWs on particulate organic carbon (POC) production, transformation, and
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MBARIMarine heatwaves have hidden impacts on ocean food webs and carbon cycling
A new study from researchers at MBARI and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science—with an interdisciplinary team of collaborators from the Hakai Institute, Xiamen University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Southern Denmark, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada—has revealed the impacts of marine heatwaves on the foundation of the ocean food web. Pairing data from robot…
How marine heat waves reshape ocean food webs and slow deep sea carbon transport
New research shows that marine heat waves can reshape ocean food webs, which in turn can slow the transport of carbon to the deep sea and hamper the ocean's ability to buffer against climate change.
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