History and Overview of the Coastal Carbon Synthesis activities

Heather Benway (Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry Program)Gulf of Mexico Coastal Synthesis Workshop

March 27-28, 2013 (St. Petersburg, FL)

Acknowledgments: Mary Zawoysky (OCB), NSF, NASA, contributors unable to attend

A Timeline of U.S. Carbon Cycle Activities

1999: U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan (Sarmiento & Wofsy, 1999) Early to mid-2000s: Formation of North American Carbon Program (NACP) and Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry (OCB) Program 2005: The North American Continental Margins Workshop Spring 2008: OCB Scoping Workshop Terrestrial and Coastal Carbon Fluxes in the Gulf of Mexico Summer 2008: The birth of the NACP/OCB Interim Coastal Synthesis Activities (with funding acquired from NASA and NSF thereafter) 2010: Kickoff Coastal Synthesis Workshop 2011: New U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan (Michalak et al., 2011) 2012: The East Coast Carbon Cycle Synthesis Workshop

The Key Players in U.S. Carbon Cycle Activities

In the Beginning - A U.S. Carbon Cycle Science PlanPrimary Long-Term Research Foci:• Northern hemisphere land (carbon) sink• Ocean carbon sink

“Develop a plan for integrated process and synthesis study in representative subregions ….Base this plan on a control-volume concept, where net reactions of carbon within, and net fluxes across key boundaries of, the control volume can be constrained.”

North American Continental Margins: A Synthesis and Planning Workshop (CCIWG, 2005)

Birth of Two National Programs:• North American Carbon Program (NACP)• Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) Program (formerly Ocean Carbon and Climate Change Program)

Terrestrial & Coastal Carbon Fluxes in the Gulf of Mexico (May 2008, St. Petersburg, FL)

Drains >60% of U.S. and >40% Mexico

Terrestrial & Coastal Carbon Fluxes in the Gulf of Mexico (May 2008, St. Petersburg, FL)

Meeting Outcomes Meeting report outlining integrated research and infrastructural priorities

and setting the stage for interdisciplinary process studies in the Gulf of Mexico (Robbins et al., 2009)

Initiated community-building efforts and established template for the NACP/OCB coastal synthesis activities

Meeting Goal

“To bring together researchers from multiple disciplines studying terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems to discuss the state of knowledge in carbon fluxes in the Gulf of Mexico, data gaps, and overarching questions in the Gulf of Mexico system”

Products- Special journal volume containing publications of regional coastal carbon syntheses

- Comprehensive science plan for coastal ocean carbon research that identifies current knowledge gaps and ranks research and observing priorities to guide future agency/interagency funding initiatives (End of 2013)

Objective

To stimulate the synthesis of observational and modeling results on carbon cycle fluxes and processes along the North American continental margins (East coast, West coast, Gulf of Mexico, Arctic, Great Lakes)

NACP/OCB Coastal Interim Synthesis ActivitiesInitiated by NACP and OCB in Summer 2008

Meeting Goals Identify existing datasets, publications, and process studies that could

contribute to regional coastal carbon budgets

Determine fluxes and processes to include in regional carbon budgets and associated models to ensure consistency and inter-comparability

NACP/OCB Coastal Synthesis Kickoff Community Workshop

(Dec. 2010, San Francisco, CA)

Meeting Format Plenary talks on important (but poorly constrained) coastal carbon fluxes

(cross-shelf, coastal vegetation, lateral/land-ocean, sedimentary)

Breakouts by Flux/Process (Air-sea, biological, cross-shelf, sedimentary, river-estuary)

Breakouts by Region

Implementation (modeling and data synthesis case studies)

Meeting Outcomes Eos meeting report (Benway, 2011)

Formation of teams to pursue smaller group activities to revise regional coastal budgets

Synthesis of existing regional data and modeling resources

Hiring of a postdoctoral investigator to assist with data mining efforts

Community Recommendations Improved spatiotemporal characterization of key processes (particularly respiration and sediment-water fluxes)

Improved satellite algorithms

Enhanced coupled physical-biogeochemical models with adequate resolution for coastal studies

Better river and groundwater discharge and carbon flux estimates

NACP/OCB Coastal Synthesis Kickoff Community Workshop (cont’d)

NACP and OCB websites

Coastal Carbon Wiki – regional progress, meetings, reports, relevant literature, etc.

OCB Newsletter – series of articles on regional coastal carbon budgets and synthesis activities

NACP/OCB Coastal Synthesis Informational Resources

NACP/OCB Coastal Synthesis Regional Progress

East Coast Carbon Cycle Synthesis Workshop

Leads: Marjy Friedrichs (VIMS), Ray Najjar (PSU), Wei-Jun Cai (UDel)January 19-20, 2012 (Gloucester Point, VA)

Sub-regions1.Gulf of Maine2.Mid-Atlantic Bight3.South Atlantic Bight

SAB

MAB

GOM

(mg m-3)

Flux Teams•Riverine input•Estuarine fluxes•Tidal wetland fluxes•Air-sea exchange•Sediment-water exchange•Exchange at the ocean boundary•Primary production•Respiration and NCP

Report Highlights and RecommendationsEast Coast Carbon Cycle Synthesis Workshop

For each of the 8 fluxes: Short term plans Long-term recommendations Overarching themes

• Innovative methods are required for scaling up local flux estimates

• Make as many independent estimates of a given flux as possible

• Mechanistic numerical models of coastal zone biogeochemistry are a powerful complement to observational studies

Preliminary carbon budget

Revised East Coast Carbon Budget

Improvements needed

•Air-sea CO2 exchange in estuaries•Lateral advective fluxes at the interfaces between tidal wetlands, estuaries, shelf waters, and open ocean •Respiration in shelf waters

West Coast Leaders: Simone Alin, Burke Hales

Sub-regions: Gulf of Alaska, Northern California Current System, Southern California Current System, Central American Isthmus

Status: Developing plans for sub-regional carbon budget papers and possible community workshop

Surface and bottom pCO2, pH, nitrate, etc. in Gulf of Alaska

Ship- and mooring-based time-series (nutrients, carbon, etc.)

Arctic• Leader: Jeremy Mathis

• Sub-regions: Bering Sea, western Arctic Ocean

• Status: To be developed opportunistically as funding allows

Bering Sea Mooring deployments (surface and bottom pCO2, pH, NO3)

Arctic Ocean

Shipboard surface pCO2 measurements

Shipboard measurements (pCO2, TA, DIC, TOC)

Laurentian Great Lakes • Leader: Galen McKinley

• Sub-regions: Progress to date mostly in Lake Superior (most well developed data-modeling approaches)

• Status: To be developed opportunistically as funding allows

Great Lakes Carbon Budget Summary• CO2 source = 0.1‐10s Tg C/yr (wide range based on model and literature-based estimates)

• Key unknowns: NPP, R (mean values and spatial distribution), surface pCO2 (temporal evolution)

• Priorities: Surface pCO2, more winter observations, satellite algorithm development