Identification

Title

Summer high‐wind events and phytoplankton productivity in the Arctic Ocean

Abstract

At the base of the marine food web, phytoplankton are an essential component of the Arctic Ocean ecosystem and carbon cycle. Especially after sea ice retreats and light becomes more available to the Arctic Ocean each summer, phytoplankton productivity is limited by nutrient availability, which can be replenished by vertical mixing of the water column. One potential mixing mechanism is gale-force wind associated with summer storm activity. Past studies show that sustained high winds (>10 m s(-1)) impart sufficient stress on the ocean surface to induce vertical mixing, and it has been speculated that greater storm activity may increase net primary productivity (NPP) on a year-to-year timescale. We test this idea using a combination of satellite products and reanalysis data from 1998 to 2018. After controlling for the amount of open water, sea-surface temperature, and wind direction, we find evidence that greater frequency of high-wind events in summer is associated with greater seasonal NPP in the Barents, Laptev, East Siberian, and southern Chukchi Seas. This relationship is only robust for the Barents and southern Chukchi Seas, which are more strongly impacted by inflow of relatively nutrient-rich water from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, respectively. In other words, stormier summers may have higher productivity in several regions of the Arctic Ocean, but especially the two inflow seas. Additionally, a recent rise in high-wind frequency in the Barents Sea may have contributed to the simultaneous increase in NPP.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7m048rd

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2020-09-28T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact