Ocean Sciences Meeting 2024

***GEOTRACES and GEOTRACES related sessions***

(scroll down to view the descriptions or click on the corresponding link)

*Geochemical tracers of ocean processes
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/meetingapp.cgi/Session/217559

Monday, 19 February 2024 –  10:30 – 12:00 (local time)

Lauren Kipp, Rowan University, Glassboro, Chris T Hayes, University of Southern Mississippi, Stennis Space Center, MS, United States, Erin Black, University of Rochester and Thomas S Weber, University of Rochester, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rochester, NY, United States
Session Proposal

*Biogeochemical Cycling in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and Beyond
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/meetingapp.cgi/Session/218094

Thursday, 22 February 2024 –  10:30 – 12:00 (local time)

Tim Conway, University of South Florida, College of Marine Science, St. Petersburg, Angela N Knapp, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, United States, Juan Carlos Herguera, Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education at Ensenada, Ensenada, Mexico and Jessica N Fitzsimmons, Texas A&M University, Oceanography, College Station, TX, United States

*Speciation and Bioavailability of Trace Metals in the Marine Environment
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/prelim.cgi/Session/218172

Thursday, 22 February 2024 – 08:30 – 10:00 and 10:30 – 12:00 (local time)
Poster session: Wednesday, 21 February 2024 – 16:00 – 18:00 (local time)

Kristen N Buck, Oregon State University, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Corvallis, OR, United States, Ana Aguilar-Islas, University of Alaska Fairbanks, College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, Fairbanks, United States, Randelle M Bundy, University of Washington Seattle Campus, School of Oceanography, Seattle, United States, Maeve C Lohan, University of Southampton, Ocean and Earth Sciences, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, United Kingdom and Machakalai Rajesh Kumar, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India
Session Proposal

*Heading South: Contrasting Biogeochemical Cycling of Trace Elements and Isotopes from Tropical to Southern Ocean Waters
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/meetingapp.cgi/Session/217957

Friday, 23 February 2024 – 14:00 – 15:30 (local time)

Gregory A Cutter, Old Dominion University, Ocean and Earth Sciences, Norfolk, United States, Jessica N Fitzsimmons, Texas A&M University, Oceanography, College Station, TX, United States, Benjamin S Twining, Bigelow Lab for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, ME, United States and Isuri Kapuge, University of Delaware, Newark, United States

*Observation-Based Data Products of Ocean Biogeochemistry and the Importance of Standardized Measurement and Uncertainty Estimation Protocols in Marine Science
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/meetingapp.cgi/Session/218286

Friday, 23 February 2024 –  14:00 – 15:30 (local time)

Jonathan David Sharp, CICOES, Seattle, United States; NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, United States, Raphaelle Sauzede, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Institut de la Mer de Villefranche (IMEV), Villefranche-sur-mer, France, Aimee Renee Neeley, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, United States, Joaquin Ernesto Chaves, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Easton, MD, United States and Chelsea Lopez, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States

*Time-series observations of ocean biogeochemistry: what we have learned and what we will learn
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/meetingapp.cgi/Session/218180

Monday, 19 February 2024 – 08:30 – 10:00 (local time)

Maki Noguchi Aita (JAMSTEC Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), Makio Honda (JAMSTEC Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), Rut Pedrosa Pamies (Marine Biological Laboratory), Angelicque E White (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

*The influence of boundary currents on exchange processes between continental margins and the open ocean and biogeochemical consequences
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/meetingapp.cgi/Session/198113

Monday, 19 February 2024 – Poster session (16:00 – 18:00 – local time)

Anh Pham, University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Los Angeles, United States, Christian Briseño-Avena, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Biology and Marine Biology, Wilmington, United States, Tamaryn Morris, South African Weather Service, Pretoria, South Africa and Alexis Floback, University of Southern California, Department of Biological Sciences, Los Angeles, United States

Session Descriptions:

Heading South: Contrasting Biogeochemical Cycling of Trace Elements and Isotopes from Tropical to Southern Ocean Waters

The cycling of biologically-essential trace elements like iron and zinc, and predominantly scavenged elements like lead and thorium, is driven by complex interactions of physical transport and mixing, spatially-variable sources and sinks, and species-specific biological uptake and regeneration. Nowhere are these controls more evident than at transitions between the ultra-oligotrophic subtropical gyres, the highly productive waters of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and the HNLC waters surrounding Antarctica. Sampling across these regimes allows the processes affecting the cycling of trace elements and isotopes to be revealed. Indeed, programs such as SOCCOM, GEOTRACES, SOLAS, and GO-SHIP have used sampling and transects in these transitional waters of the Southern Ocean. This session invites presentations on processes affecting trace elements and isotopes, methods to study them, and modeling approaches to explore mechanisms and rates of biogeochemical processes that are revealed in waters near the Southern Ocean.

Geochemical tracers of ocean processes

International programs such as GEOTRACES have greatly improved our understanding of the basin-scale distributions of carbon, nutrients, and trace elements and isotopes (TEIs) in the ocean. However, data gaps still exist around the sources, sinks, and internal cycling processes that set the observed distributions. Naturally occurring radioactive isotopes can be applied as geochemical tracers to help constrain the rates of TEI input, removal, and transport, while stable isotopes are exploited as tracers of sources and of internal cycling. Such processes may include the supply of aerosols to the ocean, export of material from the surface ocean, particle dynamics and fluxes of sinking particulate material, sources to the water column from the early diagenesis of sediments, sources from submarine groundwater discharge, biological uptake of nutrients and nutrient-like chemical species, and more. This session will be of interest to investigators applying geochemical tracers in the study of any of these processes, using observational and/or modeling approaches. It is hoped that synthesis activities combining different TEIs or combining models with observations will emerge as a product of this session.

Biogeochemical Cycling in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and Beyond

The Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico are dynamic, interconnected, marginal seas that host the complete range of marginal ocean environments, including coastal shelves, eutrophic coastal systems, oligotrophic open waters, anoxic basins, dust gradients, hydrocarbon seeps, and hydrothermal/volcanic activity. A panoply of margin fluxes (atmospheric, riverine, submarine groundwater, etc), the Mississippi, productivity gradients, periodic algal blooms, and pollution events all drive regional spatial and temporal variability in the biogeochemistry of nutrients and trace elements and isotopes (TEIs), making the region an ideal natural laboratory for testing biogeochemical hypotheses. Teleconnections between the Caribbean, the Gulf, the Gulf Stream, and the Atlantic provide unique opportunities for investigating how marginal environments transform and modify supply of nutrients and TEIs to open ocean waters. We invite contributions that characterize variability in the biogeochemistry/geochemistry of the Gulf and the Caribbean, and especially the linkages between these seas and the Atlantic. Suggested submissions may include: water column nutrient, TEI, or geochemical distributions and fluxes; biogeochemical rate measurements, regional biogeochemistry, and descriptions of circulation that impact biogeochemical dynamics. This session aims to bring together interested international investigators to highlight findings and to identify areas of common interest and collaborative opportunities to help inform future planning in national/international programs.

Speciation and Bioavailability of Trace Metals in the Marine Environment

The trace metals manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, and cadmium play important roles in the productivity and composition of marine phytoplankton communities. Some of these metals serve as limiting nutrients to phytoplankton in open ocean regions, others can substitute for essential metals that are less abundant, and still others can be toxic at elevated concentrations. The bioavailability of trace metals to phytoplankton and microorganisms is largely governed by their chemical form, or speciation, in seawater. Insights from recent studies have highlighted the range of strategies that microorganisms employ to acquire the metals they need and the interplay between trace metals during phytoplankton growth and decay. However, there is still much left to learn about biogeochemical controls on trace metal bioavailability and how changing ocean conditions may influence trace metal cycling and speciation. This session welcomes submissions from across the field of trace metal biogeochemistry, including temporal and spatial studies of metal speciation from GEOTRACES and other efforts, and experimental or modeling studies that examine feedbacks between microorganisms and trace metal chemistry, interactions between trace metals in natural systems, or the impacts of changing conditions (e.g., pH, oxygen, temperature) on trace metal speciation or bioavailability.

Observation-Based Data Products of Ocean Biogeochemistry and the Importance of Standardized Measurement and Uncertainty Estimation Protocols in Marine Science

Accurate observations of ocean environmental parameters are essential for advancing scientific knowledge and informing management decisions, and have revealed significant ocean changes over recent decades. However, inconsistencies in instrumentation and measurement protocols can hinder data comparison and synthesis across studies. Further, discrepancies between observations and models, which are important tools for projecting future changes, remain challenging to assess due to the spatiotemporal sparsity and methodological heterogeneity of ocean biogeochemical observations. The availability of open datasets from large-scale measurement campaigns (e.g., Argo and Biogeochemical Argo, GEOTRACES, GO-SHIP, EXPORTS) presents opportunities to apply statistical, machine-learning, and/or interpolative techniques to fill gaps in scattered observations to produce global, seasonally and inter-annually resolved data products. This prospect of constructing gap-filled products from heterogenous observational datasets necessitates the adoption of standardized, consistent measurement protocols. This session will bring together researchers involved in the creation, analysis, or optimization of ocean observational products and the designing, testing, and implementing community consensus protocols for measurement standardization. Presentations will showcase new and in-development products and foster discussion about utilizing large datasets, interpolating between observations, promoting consistency in measurement protocols and uncertainty estimations, and examining the role of technological advances in the measurement of ocean parameters.

Time-series observations of ocean biogeochemistry: what we have learned and what we will learn.

Ocean time-series monitoring and sampling has provided several scientific and societal insights, such as understanding climate-driven changes in ocean temperature, biogeochemical cycles and marine ecosystems. Several long-term multi-variable data sets covering the atmosphere’s and ocean’s physics from the surface to the deep layer are international available in data repositories (e,g., OceanSITES, BCO-DMO). However, data sets of water column and seafloor biogeochemistry measurements are not fully sufficient to our understanding of ocean function. For example, there is still a lack of understanding of the relationship between surface primary production, the biological carbon pump, and the carbon requirements of organisms in the deeper layers. Furthermore, long-term data to understand the coupling between biological responses and biogeochemical cycling and increasing environmental multi-stressors, such as global warming, acidification, and anoxia, is essential. In this session, we will emphasize the importance of sustained ocean time-series programs, and discuss the key issues that should be addressed to maintain and enhance ocean observation systems and reduce uncertainties in model predictions, in addition to the knowledge obtained from time-series observations to date, as well as the linkage of various approaches, such as field observations, satellite observations, numerical models, and technological development.

The influence of boundary currents on exchange processes between continental margins and the open ocean and biogeochemical consequences

Continental shelf margins and their adjacent boundary current systems are significant in global budgets of heat, freshwater and biogeochemical properties, and are regions of strong air-sea interactions and frontal instabilities. The transport and exchanges of water masses, heat, nutrients, biogeochemical constituents, and pollutants between ocean margins and the open ocean influence biodiversity, biomass, and biological interactions in marine food webs, which consequently mediate the fate of carbon and element flows. However, understanding these exchanges has been hindered by the “scale gap” between local mixing processes, cross shelf and onshore transport, and interactions with boundary currents. This session explores new approaches to close the scale gap in understanding coast – ocean exchange. We encourage submissions based on empirical observations, numerical and theoretical models that focus on: (1) material exchange in western and eastern boundary current systems; (2) the role of mesoscale and submesoscale circulations in transporting material across isobath barriers; and (3) modeling approaches that bridge the scale gap. We particularly welcome studies that focus on seasonal cycles and inter-annual variability, climate change impacts, extreme events, multiscale processes, trends, and linkages to ecosystems.

 ** GEOTRACES-related events **

MarChemSpec at the Ocean Sciences Meeting

Those will long GEOTRACES memories will be aware of the chemical speciation modelling initiative that began as SCOR Working Group 145. This initiative has now transitioned to be a part of the IAPSO/SCOR/IAPWS Joint Committee on the Properties of Seawater.

At Ocean Sciences 2024 the group will release version 1.1 of the software product. The software is freely available via the website marchemspec.org, and can be run standalone or called from MATLAB or Python. New for version 1.1 is the ability to fix any two of the CO₂ system parameters.

Project leaders David Turner and Simon Clegg will present posters on MarChemSpec applications to marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) (CM24A-1140) and trace metal complexation (OB34C-0880) at OSM24. Meet them at their posters and visit the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry (OCB) Exhibit Booth (BOOTH 512, OSM Exhibit Hall) to test drive the new software. David and Simon will be at the meeting all week, and their availability at the OCB booth is likely to be broadly:

• Tuesday: 10 am – 6 pm
• Wednesday: 10 am – 4 pm
• Thursday: 10 am, 12 noon – 1 pm

If you want to arrange a specific time to meet, please email to david.turner@marine.gu.se  or s.clegg@uea.ac.uk

Town Hall “Margin/Basin Biogeochemical Dynamics: Priorities and Future Directions“

https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/meetingapp.cgi/Session/195029

Monday, 19 February 2024 – 12:45 – 13:45 (local time)

Continental margins play a critical role in the exchange of materials between the continents and ocean basins, and are important as sources and sinks of oxygen in their own right.   They have great economic and societal importance in terms of natural capital, including fisheries.    Margin systems are influenced by processes common to all margins as well as factors reflecting the physical characteristics of each system.   Overlaying this complexity are the long-term effects of climate change, which is predicted to impact marginal seas sooner than interior basins.   Recent innovations in modeling and observational technologies have the potential to advance our understanding of the biogeochemistry of this vital component of the marine system.   This Town Hall will address the future objectives of biogeochemical research in internal cycling within margins and exchange processes with ocean basins.   The Ocean Sciences Meeting is a good forum because of the strong international component. Several nations, including Japan and Germany, have developed very strong interdisciplinary region-specific programs spanning multiple years and we have much to learn from them.  We will also address challenges including establishing a consensus on benthic flux measurements as well as strategies link margin processes with processes occurring at the land-margin interface.