Climate change manifestation in the ocean, through warming, oxygen loss, increasing acidification, and changing particulate organic carbon flux (one metric of altered food supply), is projected to affect most deep-ocean ecosystems concomitantly with increasing direct human disturbance. Climate drivers will alter deep-sea biodiversity and associated ecosystem services, and may interact with disturbance from resource extraction activities or even climate geoengineering. We suggest that to ensure the effective management of increasing use of the deep ocean (e.g., for bottom fishing, oil and gas extraction, and deep-seabed mining), environmental management and developing regulations must consider climate change. Strategic planning, impact assessment and monitoring, spatial management, application of the precautionary approach, and full-cost accounting of extraction activities should embrace climate consciousness. Coupled climate and biological modeling approaches applied in the water and on the seafloor can help accomplish this goal. For example, Earth-System Model projections of climate-change parameters at the seafloor reveal heterogeneity in projected climate hazard and time of emergence (beyond natural variability) in regions targeted for deep-seabed mining. Models that combine climate-induced changes in ocean circulation with particle tracking predict altered transport of early life stages (larvae) under climate change. Habitat suitability models can help assess the consequences of altered larval dispersal, predict climate refugia, and identify vulnerable regions for multiple species under climate change. Engaging the deep observing community can support the necessary data provisioning to mainstream climate into the development of environmental management plans. To illustrate this approach, we focus on deep-seabed mining and the International Seabed Authority, whose mandates include regulation of all mineral-related activities in international waters and protecting the marine environment from the harmful effects of mining. However, achieving deep-ocean sustainability under the UN Sustainable Development Goals will require integration of climate consideration across all policy sectors.

/pdf/climate-change-considerations-are-fundamental-to-management-4ev0xrf76y.pdf

Climate change considerations are fundamental to management of deep-sea resource extraction

The oceanic biological carbon pump (BCP) regulates the Earth carbon cycle by transporting part of the photosynthetically fixed CO2 into the deep ocean. Suppressing this mechanism would result in an important increase of atmospheric CO2 level. The BCP occurs mainly in the form of (1) organic carbon (OC) particles sinking out the surface ocean, of (2) neutrally buoyant OC (dissolved or particulate) entrained by downward water masses movements and/or mixing, and of (3) active transport of OC by migrating animals such as zooplankton and fishes. These various pools of OC differ in size since their sinking, production and decomposition rates vary spatially and temporally. Moreover, the OC transported to depths via these various export pathways as well as their decomposition pathways all have different ecological origins and therefore may response differently to climate changes. Currently, most ocean biogeochemical models do not resolve these various of OC pathways explicitly; rather, they imply that OC is therein created and destroyed equally. In addition, the organic composition of these various pools is largely unknown, especially at depths below 500m. Here known processes of OC export from the surface ocean to the mesopelagic zone (100-1000m) are briefly reviewed. Three OC export pathways and some of their sub-categories are considered. I refer to published studies of OC fluxes associated with the specific downward export pathways and identify gaps that need to be addressed to better understand the OC fluxes associated with the BCP.

/pdf/pathways-of-organic-carbon-downward-transport-by-the-oceanic-27oropozaf.pdf

Pathways of organic carbon downward transport by the oceanic biological carbon pump

Nitrogen fixation has a critical role in marine primary production, yet our understanding of marine nitrogen-fixers (diazotrophs) is hindered by limited observations. Here, we report a quantitative image analysis pipeline combined with mapping of molecular markers for mining >2,000,000 images and >1300 metagenomes from surface, deep chlorophyll maximum and mesopelagic seawater samples across 6 size fractions ( 20 µm). Using imaging and molecular data, we estimate that polyploidy can substantially affect gene abundances of symbiotic versus colony-forming diazotrophs. Our results support the canonical view that larger diazotrophs (>10 μm) dominate the tropical belts, while unicellular cyanobacterial and non-cyanobacterial diazotrophs are globally distributed in surface and mesopelagic layers. We describe co-occurring diazotrophic lineages of different lifestyles and identify high-density regions of diazotrophs in the global ocean. Overall, we provide an update of marine diazotroph biogeographical diversity and present a new bioimaging-bioinformatic workflow. Nitrogen fixation by diazotrophs is critical for marine primary production. Using Tara Oceans datasets, this study combines a quantitative image analysis pipeline with metagenomic mining to provide an improved global overview of diazotroph abundance, diversity and distribution.

/pdf/global-distribution-patterns-of-marine-nitrogen-fixers-by-4gvkmg6sq9.pdf

Global distribution patterns of marine nitrogen-fixers by imaging and molecular methods

Abstract Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) cover ~12% of the global land surface. They are formed by an intimate association between soil particles, photoautotrophic and heterotrophic organisms, and they effectively stabilize the soil surface of drylands. Quantitative information on the impact of biocrusts on the global cycling and climate effects of aeolian dust, however, is not available. Here, we combine the currently limited experimental data with a global climate model to investigate the effects of biocrusts on regional and global dust cycling under current and future conditions. We estimate that biocrusts reduce the global atmospheric dust emissions by ~60%, preventing the release of ~0.7 Pg dust per year. Until 2070, biocrust coverage is expected to be severely reduced by climate change and land-use intensification. The biocrust loss will cause an increased dust burden, leading to a reduction of the global radiation budget of around 0.12 to 0.22 W m −2 , corresponding to about 50% of the total direct forcing of anthropogenic aerosols. This biocrust control on dust cycling and its climate impacts have important implications for human health, biogeochemical cycling and the functioning of the ecosystems, and thus should be considered in the modelling, mitigation and management of global change. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-00942-1.pdf

Global cycling and climate effects of aeolian dust controlled by biological soil crusts

Lithogenic material such as Saharan dust can be incorporated into organic aggregates and act as ballast, potentially enhancing the marine carbon export via increased sinking velocities of aggregates. We studied the ballasting effects of Saharan dust on the aggregate dynamics in the upwelling region off Cape Blanc (Mauritania). Aggregate formation from a natural plankton community exposed to Saharan dust deposition resulted in higher abundance of aggregates with higher sinking velocities compared to aggregate formation with low dust. This higher aggregate abundance and sinking velocities potentially increased the carbon export 10-fold when the aggregates were ballasted by Saharan dust. After aggregate formation in the surface waters, subsequent sinking through suspended Saharan dust minerals had no influence on aggregate sizes, abundance, and sinking velocities. We found that aggregates formed in the surface ocean off Mauritania were already heavily ballasted with lithogenic material and could therefore not scavenge any additional minerals during their descent. This suggests that carbon export to the deep ocean in regions with high dust deposition is strongly controlled by dust input to the surface ocean while suspended dust particles in deeper water layers do not significantly interact with sinking aggregates.

https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/lno.10779

The ballasting effect of Saharan dust deposition on aggregate dynamics and carbon export: Aggregation, settling, and scavenging potential of marine snow

Enhanced atmospheric input of dust-borne nutrients and minerals to the remote surface ocean can potentially increase carbon uptake and sequestration at depth. Nutrients can enhance primary productivity, and mineral particles act as ballast, increasing sinking rates of particulate organic matter. Here we present a two-year time series of sediment trap observations of particulate organic carbon flux to 3,000 m depth, measured directly in two locations: the dust-rich central North Atlantic gyre and the dust-poor South Atlantic gyre. We find that carbon fluxes are twice as high and a higher proportion of primary production is exported to depth in the dust-rich North Atlantic gyre. Low stable nitrogen isotope ratios suggest that high fluxes result from the stimulation of nitrogen fixation and productivity following the deposition of dust-borne nutrients. Sediment traps in the northern gyre also collected intact colonies of nitrogen-fixing Trichodesmium species. Whereas ballast in the southern gyre is predominantly biogenic, dust-derived mineral particles constitute the dominant ballast element during the enhanced carbon fluxes in the northern gyre. We conclude that dust deposition increases carbon sequestration in the North Atlantic gyre through the fertilization of the nitrogen-fixing community in surface waters and mineral ballasting of sinking particles.

/pdf/carbon-sequestration-in-the-deep-atlantic-enhanced-by-5ecib7wlvw.pdf

Carbon sequestration in the deep Atlantic enhanced by Saharan dust

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Carbon sequestration in the deep Atlantic enhanced by Saharan dust