Physical and biogeochemical forcing of oxygen and nitrate changes during El Niño/El Viejo and La Niña/La Vieja upper-ocean phases in the tropical eastern South Pacific along 86° W

Temporal changes in the water mass distribution and biogeochemical signals in the tropical eastern South Pacific are investigated with the help of an extended optimum multi-parameter (OMP) analysis, a technique for inverse modeling of mixing and biogeochemical processes through a multidimensional least-square fit. Two ship occupations of a meridional section along 85°50' W from 14° S to 1° N are analysed during relatively warm (El Niño/El Viejo, March 1993) and cold (La Niña/La Vieja, February 2009) upper-ocean phases. The largest El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impact was found in the water properties and water mass distribution in the upper 200 m north of 10° S. ENSO promotes the vertical motion of the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) associated with the hypoxic equatorial subsurface water (ESSW). During a cold phase the core of the ESSW is found at shallower layers, replacing shallow (top 200 m) subtropical surface water (STW). The heave of isopycnals due to ENSO partially explains the intrusion of oxygen-rich and nutrient-poor antarctic intermediate water (AAIW) into the depth range of 150–500 m. The other cause of the AAIW increase at shallower depths is that this water mass flowed along shallower isopycnals in 2009. The shift in the vertical location of AAIW reaching the OMZ induces changes in the amount of oxygen advected and respired inside the OMZ: the larger the oxygen supply, the greater the respiration and the lower the nitrate loss through denitrification. Variations in the intensity of the zonal currents in the equatorial current system, which ventilates the OMZ from the west, are used to explain the patchy latitudinal changes of seawater properties observed along the repeated section. Significant changes reach down to 800 m, suggesting that decadal variability (Pacific decadal oscillation) is also a potential driver in the observed variability

Water mass pathways to the North Atlantic oxygen minimum zone

23 pages, 14 figures, 1 table, supporting information http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2014JC010557The water mass pathways to the North Atlantic Oxygen Minimum Zone (naOMZ) are traditionally sketched within the cyclonic tropical circulation via the poleward branching from the eastward flowing jets that lie south of 10°N. However, our water mass analysis of historic hydrographic observations together with numerical Lagrangian experiments consistently reveal that the potential density level of σθ = 26.8 kg m-3 (σ26.8, approximately 300 m depth) separates two distinct regimes of circulation within the Central Water (CW) stratum of the naOMZ. In the upper CW (above σ26.8), and in agreement with previous studies, the supply of water mainly comes from the south with a predominant contribution of South Atlantic CW. In the lower CW (below σ26.8), where minimal oxygen content is found, the tropical pathway is instead drastically weakened in favor of a subtropical pathway. More than two thirds of the total water supply to this lower layer takes place north of 10°N, mainly via an eastward flow at 14°N and northern recirculations from the northern subtropical gyre. The existence of these northern jets explains the greater contribution of North Atlantic CW observed in the lower CW, making up to 50% of the water mass at the naOMZ core. The equatorward transfer of mass from the well-ventilated northern subtropical gyre emerges as an essential part of the ventilation of the naOMZ. © 2015. American Geophysical Union. All Rights ReservedThis research has been funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad through projects MOC2 (CTM2008–06438-C02-01) and TIC-MOC (CTM2011–28867). J. Peña- Izquierdo has been supported through a FPI predoctoral grant linked to MOC2. E. van Sebille was supported by the Australian Research Council via grant DE130101336 and P. J. Llanillo was partly funded by CONICYT/FONDECYT de Postdoctorado through project 3150229. The authors acknowledge the NODC and Argo Program for making hydrographic data freely available (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov and http://www.coriolis.eu.org). We also thank the ECCO2/NASA program for providing the numerical assimilative simulation via their web page (http://ecco2.jpl.nasa.gov/products/)Peer Reviewe

FICARAM-15 Cruise Report 20th March – 22nd May 2013 on board BIO Hespérides by the Group FICARAM

54 páginas, 19 figuras, 3 anexosThe FICARAM-15 is the fifteenth repetition of a section conducted in 1994. This section is part of the international program GOSHIP (http://www.go-ship.org/CruisePlans.html) to develop a globally coordinated network of sustained hydrographic sections as part of the global ocean/climate observing system. The objective of the FICARAM-15 cruise is to investigate the temporal evolution of the anthropogenic carbon and evaluate the CO2 absorption capacity of the South Atlantic region, the Equatorial zone, and the subtropical region of Azores-Gibraltar in the North Atlantic. This cruise is supported by the CATARINA project funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CTM2010-17141) and is part of the European Union FP7 project CARBOCHANGE (http://carbochange.b.uib.no/). The objective of FICARAM-15 cruise is framed in the CATARINA project conducted by the tasks I.2.1 (air-sea CO2 exchange) I.3 (ventilation of water masses), I.4.1 (zonal variability of N2O and CH4), I.4.2 (anthropogenic carbon storage), I.4.4 (saturation horizon of calcium carbonate along the section) and I.5.4 (evolution of the acidification rates). Another component of the FICARAM-15 cruise aims to examine the biological and biogeochemical mechanisms that hinder total dissolved organic carbon (DOC) remineralisation in marine systems, taking a multidisciplinary perspective and applying many different approaches. This is the global objective of the Spanish project DOREMI (CTM2012-34294) that joins this FICARAM-15 cruise.During the FICARAM cruise the physical oceanography group was responsible for collecting the following data sets: CTD and XBT data; vessel-mounted ADCP and lowered ADCP; continuous thermosalinograph. Physical oceanographers participated in the cruise financed through Project “Tipping Corners in the Meridional Overturning Circulation” (TIC-MOC), CTM2011-28867. The FICARAM-15 cruise was organized in two phases with a common sampling. LEG 1: From Punta Arenas (Chile) to Recife (Brazil): 62 stations. Chief Scientist: Aida F. Ríos, PI of CATARINA project LEG 2: From Recife (Brazil) to Cartagena (Spain): 46 stations Chief Scientist: Celia Marrasé, PI of DOREMI project This report contains the sampling of all the variables at each station along the FICARAM section, as well as the analysis of the biogeochemical variables and the preliminary results. The principal investigator of the DOREMI project produced another report with the common sampling section, showing the analysis and results of the experiments on dissolved organic matter carried out on board.This cruise is supported by the CATARINA project funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CTM2010-17141) and is part of the European Union FP7 project CARBOCHANGE (http://carbochange.b.uib.no/)Peer reviewe

Human oocyte-derived methylation differences persist in the placenta revealing widespread transient imprinting

Thousands of regions in gametes have opposing methylation profiles that are largely resolved during the post-fertilization epigenetic reprogramming. However some specific sequences associated with imprinted loci survive this demethylation process. Here we present the data describing the fate of germline-derived methylation in humans. With the exception of a few known paternally methylated germline differentially methylated regions (DMRs) associated with known imprinted domains, we demonstrate that sperm-derived methylation is reprogrammed by the blastocyst stage of development. In contrast a large number of oocyte-derived methylation differences survive to the blastocyst stage and uniquely persist as transiently methylated DMRs only in the placenta. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this phenomenon is exclusive to primates, since no placenta-specific maternal methylation was observed in mouse. Utilizing single cell RNA-seq datasets from human preimplantation embryos we show that following embryonic genome activation the maternally methylated transient DMRs can orchestrate imprinted expression. However despite showing widespread imprinted expression of genes in placenta, allele-specific transcriptional profiling revealed that not all placenta-specific DMRs coordinate imprinted expression and that this maternal methylation may be absent in a minority of samples, suggestive of polymorphic imprinted methylation

Water mass variability in the eastern South Pacific and the ventilation of the oxygen minimum zone

Memoria de tesis doctoral presentada por Pedro José Llanillo del Río para optar al grado de Doctor en Ciencias del Mar por la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), realizada bajo la dirección del Dr. Josep Lluís Pelegrí Llopart del Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC).-- 126 pages[EN] The eastern South Pacific (ESP) is a key region of the world ocean with direct influence on the global climate. Two clear examples are the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which occurs in the Pacific but influences the weather worldwide, and the observed slowdown in the rise of global air temperatures since 2001, recently explained in terms of a more vigorous upwelling of cold waters in the ESP and in the Equatorial Pacific. Over the last decade, the oceanographic scientific community has turned its attention to the oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) found in the world oceans, with one of the most intense being located in the ESP. OMZs are apparently expanding under the ongoing global warming, threatening productive marine habitats and weakening the ocean’s ability to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide by promoting nitrogen loss. Inside suboxic OMZs, the oceanic-fixed nitrogen is released to the atmosphere, partially as nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas that further disrupts the atmospheric radiative balance. This dissertation aims at extending our knowledge of the ESP OMZ through two main approaches. The first approach is based on tracer analysis and inverse modeling techniques. Such techniques are applied to hydrographic datasets in order to examine the water mass structure, its variability and its role on the ventilation of the ESP OMZ. The second approach brings a more dynamic perspective to the study of the ventilation of the ESP OMZ, with the assessment of the annual-mean advective and turbulent oxygen transports into the ESP OMZ from Argo and dissolved oxygen datasets. [...][ES] El Pacífico Suroriental (ESP) es una región clave del océano con influencia directa sobre el clima global. Dos claros ejemplos son el fenómeno de El Niño-Oscilación del Sur (ENSO), el cual sucede en el Pacífico pero altera las condiciones atmosféricas a nivel mundial, y el reciente descubrimiento de que la ralentización observada desde el 2001 en el incremento de la temperatura media mundial se debe parcialmente a un fortalecimiento del afloramiento de aguas frías en el ESP. Durante la última década la comunidad científica ha puesto su atención en las zonas de mínimo de oxígeno (OMZs) del océano global, estando una de las más intensas localizada en el ESP. Las OMZs parecen estar expandiéndose con el cambio climático, esto amenaza la existencia de productivos hábitats marinos a la vez que provoca una pérdida del nitrógeno oceánico, lo que debilita la productividad primaria oceánica y por tanto la capacidad del océano para secuestrar dióxido de carbono. Dentro de las OMZs con núcleo subóxico, el nitrógeno disuelto es degradado y liberado a la atmósfera en forma de varios gases, uno de ellos es un gas de potente efecto invernadero, el óxido nitroso, y su emisión altera aún más el balance radiativo de la atmósfera. Esta tesis tiene como objetivo principal avanzar en el conocimiento de la OMZ del ESP a través de dos estrategias principales. La primera estrategia está basada en el análisis de trazadores y en el uso de modelos inversos. Estos modelos han sido aplicados a datos hidrográficos con el objetivo de averiguar la distribución de masas de agua, su variabilidad y su papel en la ventilación de la OMZ del ESP. En la segunda estrategia se estudia la ventilación de la OMZ del ESP desde la perspectiva de la dinámica, mediante el cálculo de los transportes promedios anuales de oxígeno por advección y por turbulencia a partir de datos de oxígeno disuelto y de perfiladores Argo [...]También agradecer al CSIC el haberme dado la oportunidad de entrar en el mundo científico gracias a una beca JAE-PredocPeer Reviewe

Physical and biogeochemical forcing of oxygen changes in the tropical eastern South Pacific along 86º W: 1993 versus 2009

36 pages, 9 figures, 1 tableTemporal changes of the water mass distribution and biogeochemical cycling in the tropical eastern South Pacific are investigated based on the extended Optimum Multi-Parameter (OMP) method. Two ship occupations of a meridional section along 85°50´ W, from 14° S to 1° N, are analysed, one during a relatively warm (El Niño/El Viejo, March 1993) and the other during a cold (La Niña/La Vieja, February 2009) upper-ocean phase. The largest El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impact was found in the water properties and water mass distribution in the upper 250 m. The most prominent change is the vertical motion of the Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ) associated to the hypoxic Equatorial Subsurface Water (ESSW). During a cold phase the core of the ESSW is found at shallower layers, replacing the shallow (top 250 m) Subtropical Surface Water (STW) and allowing an intrusion of oxygen-rich and nutrient-poor Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) in the depth range of 300 to 600 m. The shift in the vertical location of the intrusion of AAIW in the OMZ induces changes in oxygen advection and respiration, the largest the oxygen supply the greatest the respiration and the lowest the nitrate loss by denitrification. Changes in the intensity of the zonal currents in the Equatorial Current System, that ventilate the OMZ from the west, are used to explain the patchy latitudinal changes of seawater properties observed along the repeated section. Given that changes down to 800 m depth are observed, not only interannual (ENSO) but also decadal variability (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) is a potential driver for the observed changesP. J. L. was supported through a JAE grant from Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient´ıficas and the European Social Fund. Financial support was received through LINCGlobal, CSIC-PUC (P. J. L. and J. L. P.), GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the DFG-supported project SFB 754 (www.sfb754.de) (J. K. and L. S.)Peer Reviewe