Sea-ice loss accelerates carbon cycling and enhances seasonal extremes of acidification in the Arctic Chukchi Sea
Date
2024-02-05
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Limnology and Oceanography Letters
Abstract
The Chukchi Sea shelf (CSS) is a highly productive region in the Arctic Ocean and it is highly efficient for absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide and exporting and retaining carbon in the deep sea. However, with global warming, the carbon retention time in CSS may decrease, leading to less efficient carbon export. Here, we investigate the seasonal variability of carbonate chemistry in CSS using three sets of late- vs. early-summer reoccupations of the same transect. Our findings demonstrate substantially increased and rapid degradation of biologically produced organic matter and therefore acidification over time in the southern CSS due to earlier sea-ice retreat, resulting in significantly shorter carbon retention time. In sharp contrast, no increased degradation has been observed in the northern CSS where photosynthesis has just commenced. In the future, climate change would further diminish the carbon export capacity and exacerbate seasonal acidification not only within CSS but also across other polar coastal oceans.
Scientific Significance Statement
The Arctic Chukchi Sea shelf (CSS) is a prominent site for the biological drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which can subsequently be transported to the deep sea in the Arctic Ocean. The efficiency of carbon export is influenced by seasonal sea-ice formation and retreat: longer period of sea-ice opening results in shorter carbon retention time and reduced carbon export due to rapid recycling of organic matter. However, this process is poorly understood due to lack of observations. Here, we present three sets of late- vs. early-summer reoccupations along the same transect in the CSS. We unveil distinct spatial patterns of carbonate chemistry and subsurface acidification between the southern CSS and northern CSS. In the sCSS, degradation of biologically produced organic matter has occurred rapidly and caused subsurface acidification since early summer due to earlier sea-ice retreat; however, no such phenomenon is observed in the northern region. As Arctic warming continues in the future, these conditions are expected to persist, further diminishing carbon export capacity and exacerbating seasonal acidification.
Description
© 2024 The Authors. Limnology and Oceanography Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords
climate action
Citation
Zhang, Y., Wu, Y., Cai, W.-J., Yi, X., Gao, X., Bi, H., Zhuang, Y., Chen, L. and Qi, D. (2024), Sea-ice loss accelerates carbon cycling and enhances seasonal extremes of acidification in the Arctic Chukchi Sea. Limnol. Oceanogr. Lett. https://doi.org/10.1002/lol2.10378