Resilience by diversity: Large intraspecific differences in climate change responses of an Arctic diatom

The potential for adaptation of phytoplankton to future climate is often extrapolated based on single strain responses of a representative species, ignoring variability within and between species. The aim of this study was to approximate the range of strain-specific reaction patterns within an Arctic diatom population, which selection can act upon. In a laboratory experiment, we first incubated natural communities from an Arctic fjord under present and future conditions. In a second step, single strains of the diatom Thalassiosira hyalina were isolated from these selection environments and exposed to a matrix of temperature (38C and 68C) and pCO 2 levels (180 latm, 370 latm, 1000 latm, 1400 latm) to establish reaction norms for growth, production rates, and elemental quotas. The results revealed interactive effects of temperature and pCO 2 as well as wide tolerance ranges. Between strains, however, sensitivities and optima differed greatly. These strain-specific responses corresponded well with their respective selection environments of the previous com- munity incubation. We therefore hypothesize that intraspecific variability and the selection between coexist- ing strains may pose an underestimated source of species’ plasticity. Thus, adaptation of phytoplankton assemblages may also occur by selection within rather than only between species, and species-wide inferences from single strain experiments should be treated with caution

Annual cycle observations of aerosols capable of ice formation in central Arctic clouds

The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, prompting glacial melt, permafrost thaw, and sea ice decline. These severe consequences induce feedbacks that contribute to amplified warming, affecting weather and climate globally. Aerosols and clouds play a critical role in regulating radiation reaching the Arctic surface. However, the magnitude of their effects is not adequately quantified, especially in the central Arctic where they impact the energy balance over the sea ice. Specifically, aerosols called ice nucleating particles (INPs) remain understudied yet are necessary for cloud ice production and subsequent changes in cloud lifetime, radiative effects, and precipitation. Here, we report observations of INPs in the central Arctic over a full year, spanning the entire sea ice growth and decline cycle. Further, these observations are size-resolved, affording valuable information on INP sources. Our results reveal a strong seasonality of INPs, with lower concentrations in the winter and spring controlled by transport from lower latitudes, to enhanced concentrations of INPs during the summer melt, likely from marine biological production in local open waters. This comprehensive characterization of INPs will ultimately help inform cloud parameterizations in models of all scales

Controls of primary production in two phytoplankton blooms in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current

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Impure Public Goods and Technological Interdependencies

Impure public goods represent an important group of goods. Almost every public good exerts not only effects which are public to all but also effects which are private to the producer of this good. What is often omitted in the analysis of impure public goods is the fact that – regularly – these private effects can also be generated independently of the public good. In our analysis we focus on the effects alternative technologies – independently generating the private effects of the public good – may have on the provision of impure public goods. After the investigation in an analytical impure public good model, we numerically simulate the effects of alternative technologies in a parameterized model for climate policy in Germany