Temperature-dependent remineralization in a warming ocean increases surface pCO2 through changes in marine ecosystem composition

Temperature-dependent remineralization of organic matter is, in general, not included in marine biogeochemistry models currently used for CMIP5 climate projections. Associated feedbacks have therefore not been quantified. In this study we aim at investigating how temperature dependent remineralization rates (Q10 = 2) in a warming ocean impact on the marine carbon cycle, and if this may weaken the oceanic sink for anthropogenic CO2. We perturb an Earth system model used for CMIP5 with temperature-dependent remineralization rates of organic matter using RCP8.5 derived temperature anomalies for 2100. The result is a modest change of organic carbon export but also derived effects associated with feedback processes between changed nutrient concentrations and ecosystem structure. As more nutrients are recycled in the euphotic layer, increased primary production causes a depletion of silicate in the surface layer as opal is exported to depth more efficiently than POC. Shifts in the ecosystem occur as diatoms find less favorable conditions. Export production of calcite shells increases causing a decrease in alkalinity and higher surface pCO2. With regard to future climate projections the results indicate a reduction of oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2 of about 0.2 PgC yr-1 toward the end of the 21st century in addition to reductions caused by already identified climate-carbon cycle feedbacks. Similar shifts in the ecosystem as identified here, but driven by external forcing, have been proposed to drive glacial/interglacial changes in atmospheric pCO2. We propose a similar positive feedback between climate perturbations and the global carbon cycle but driven solely by internal biogeochemical processes

Climate and marine biogeochemistry during the Holocene from transient model simulations

Climate and marine biogeochemistry changes over the Holocene are investigated based on transient global climate and biogeochemistry model simulations over the last 9500 years. The simulations are forced by accelerated and non-accelerated orbital parameters, respectively, and atmospheric PCO2, CH4, and N2O. The analysis focusses on key climatic parameters of relevance to the marine biogeochemistry, and on the physical and biogeochemical processes that drive atmosphere-ocean carbon fluxes and changes in the oxygen minimum zones (OMZs). The simulated global mean ocean temperature is characterized by a mid-Holocene cooling and a late Holocene warming, a common feature among Holocene climate simulations which, however, contradicts a proxy-derived mid-Holocene climate optimum. As the most significant result, and only in the non-accelerated simulation, we find a substantial increase in volume of the OMZ in the eastern equatorial Pacific (EEP) continuing into the late Holocene. The concurrent increase in apparent oxygen utilization (AOU) and age of the water mass within the EEP OMZ can be attributed to a weakening of the deep northward inflow into the Pacific. This results in a large-scale mid-to-late Holocene increase in AOU in most of the Pacific and hence the source regions of the EEP OMZ waters. The simulated expansion of the EEP OMZ raises the question of whether the deoxygenation that has been observed over the last 5 decades could be a - perhaps accelerated - continuation of an orbitally driven decline in oxygen. Changes in global mean biological production and export of detritus remain of the order of 10 %, with generally lower values in the mid-Holocene. The simulated atmosphere-ocean CO2 flux would result in atmospheric pCO2 changes of similar magnitudes to those observed for the Holocene, but with different timing. More technically, as the increase in EEP OMZ volume can only be simulated with the non-accelerated model simulation, non-accelerated model simulations are required for an analysis of the marine biogeochemistry in the Holocene. Notably, the long control experiment also displays similar magnitude variability to the transient experiment for some parameters. This indicates that also long control runs are required when investigating Holocene climate and marine biogeochemistry, and that some of the Holocene variations could be attributed to internal variability of the atmosphere-ocean system

Die Marschen der Insel Föhr und der Wiedingharde, Kreis Nordfriesland: eine siedlungsarchäologische Studie

Die Arbeit stellt das Siedlungsgeschehen einer siedlungsarchäologisch bisher wenig beachteten Landschaft an der Nordseeküste dar. Ergebnisse von Ausgrabungen einschließlich des umfangreichen Fundgutes werden besonders im Hinblick auf den Einfluss des Meeres und der Austauschbeziehungen entlang der Küste dargestellt

Die Reprogrammierung von Zellen – Rechtliche Steuerung dynamisch voranschreitender biomedizinischer Forschung im Interesse des Menschen

Im Jahr 2006 sorgte die Entdeckung der sogenannten induzierten pluripotenten Stammzellen oder kurz iPS für Aufsehen in der Welt der Wissenschaft. Diese und andere Techniken der Reprogrammierung von Zellen versprechen ein enormes therapeutisches Potential. Das Recht stellen sie jedoch vor große Herausforderungen. Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit der rechtswissenschaftlichen Perspektive auf die Reprogrammierung von Zellen

Oxygen minimum zone variations in the tropical Pacific during the Holocene

We performed simulations with a global model of ocean biogeochemistry forced with orbitally driven anomalies of oceanic conditions for the mid-Holocene, known as Holocene climate optimum, to investigate natural variability in the eastern equatorial Pacific oxygen minimum zone (EEP OMZ). While the global mean temperature during the mid-Holocene was likely slightly higher than the 1961–1990 mean, the sea surface temperature in the EEP was slightly lower. Mid-Holocene oxygen concentrations in the EEP OMZ are generally increased, locally by up to 50%, and the EEP OMZ volume was, depending on definition of the OMZ threshold, at least 6% lower. These higher oxygen levels are the combined result of competing physical and biogeochemical processes. Our results imply that mechanisms for past changes in the EEP OMZ intensity and extension can differ from the global warming driven decline in oxygen levels observed for the recent decades and predicted for the future

Methods to evaluate CaCO3 cycle modules in coupled global biogeochemical ocean models

The marine CaCO3 cycle is an important component of the oceanic carbon system and directly affects the cycling of natural and the uptake of anthropogenic carbon. In numerical models of the marine carbon cycle, the CaCO3 cycle component is often evaluated against the observed distribution of alkalinity. Alkalinity varies in response to the formation and remineralization of CaCO3 and organic matter. However, it also has a large conservative component, which may strongly be affected by a deficient representation of ocean physics (circulation, evaporation, and precipitation) in models. Here we apply a global ocean biogeochemical model run into preindustrial steady state featuring a number of idealized tracers, explicitly capturing the model's CaCO3 dissolution, organic matter remineralization, and various preformed properties (alkalinity, oxygen, phosphate). We compare the suitability of a variety of measures related to the CaCO3 cycle, including alkalinity (TA), potential alkalinity and TA*, the latter being a measure of the time-integrated imprint of CaCO3 dissolution in the ocean. TA* can be diagnosed from any data set of TA, temperature, salinity, oxygen and phosphate. We demonstrate the sensitivity of total and potential alkalinity to the differences in model and ocean physics, which disqualifies them as accurate measures of biogeochemical processes. We show that an explicit treatment of preformed alkalinity (TA0) is necessary and possible. In our model simulations we implement explicit model tracers of TA0 and TA*. We find that the difference between modelled true TA* and diagnosed TA* was below 10% (25%) in 73% (81%) of the ocean's volume. In the Pacific (and Indian) Oceans the RMSE of A* is below 3 (4) mmol TA m−3, even when using a global rather than regional algorithms to estimate preformed alkalinity. Errors in the Atlantic Ocean are significantly larger and potential improvements of TA0 estimation are discussed. Applying the TA* approach to the output of three state-of-the-art ocean carbon cycle models, we demonstrate the advantage of explicitly taking preformed alkalinity into account for separating the effects of biogeochemical processes and circulation on the distribution of alkalinity. In particular, we suggest to use the TA* approach for CaCO3 cycle model evaluation

Improving ENSO Simulations and Predictions Through Ocean State Estimation

Simulations and seasonal forecasts of tropical Pacific SST and subsurface fields that are based on the global Consortium for Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) ocean-state estimation procedure are investigated. As compared to similar results from a traditional ENSO simulation and forecast procedure, the hindcast of the constrained ocean state is significantly closer to observed surface and subsurface conditions. The skill of the 12-month lead SST forecast in the equatorial Pacific is comparable in both approaches. The optimization appears to have better skill in the SST anomaly correlations, suggesting that the initial ocean conditions and forcing corrections calculated by the ocean-state estimation do have a positive impact on the predictive skill. However, the optimized forecast skill is currently limited by the low quality of the statistical atmosphere. Progress is expected from optimizing a coupled model over a longer time interval with the coupling statistics being part of the control vector