USAP-DC

The Southern Ocean serves as the planet's major uptake region for the oceanic uptake of increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The current generation of coupled climate models (atmosphere-ocean-land) are used to make future climate projections, but are known to exhibit significant biases in observed ocean carbon uptake. These numerical models are known to lack the resolution (space and time) to adequately represent many of the mesoscale processes and features known to effect important roles in air-sea exchange. To account for the ocean mesoscale (10km - 100km) phenomena, such as jets, fronts, meanders and eddies known to be crucial for bio-physical interactions of CO2 fluxes, this project will progressively increase model resolution from coarse to finer grid spacing, furthering our understanding of mesoscale processes. The study will focus on regions of interest, the austral South Pacific, and the Drake Passage. Both regions are to some extent well observed. These two regions are topographically constrained pathways constituent pathways of the Atlantic Circumpolar Current, and exhibit enhanced eddy activity. The numerical output will be compared with observations and a suite of bio-geochemical tracers will be used to examine biophysical interaction processes, occurring at fronts and eddies. The results from the study can provide process and specific metrics and diagnostics to assess and calibrate the global climate carbon models. A Ph.D. and an undergraduate intern will be trained and gain research insight. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Person	Role
Ito, Takamitsu	Investigator and contact
Jersild, Annika	Researcher

Antarctic Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences

Award # 1744755

USAP-1744755_1

None in the Database

1. Jersild, A., & Ito, T. (2020). Physical and biological controls of the Drake Passage pCO2 variability. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 34, e2020GB006644. (doi:10.1029/2020GB006644)
2. Pham, A. L. D., & Ito, T. (2019). Ligand Binding Strength Explains the Distribution of Iron in the North Atlantic Ocean. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(13), 7500–7508. (doi:10.1029/2019gl083319)
3. Jersild, A., & Ito, T. (2020). Physical and Biological Controls of the Drake Passage pCO2 Variability. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 34(9). (doi:10.1029/2020gb006644)
4. Ito, T., Weng, A., & Thomas, H. G. (2019). Sensitivity of metabolic constraints for marine organisms to emission scenarios. (doi:10.1002/essoar.10501478.1)
5. Ito, T., Weng, A., & Thomas, H. G. (2020). Sensitivity of metabolic constraints for marine organisms to emission scenarios. (doi:10.1002/essoar.10501533.1)
6. Ito, T. (2022). Development of the Regional Carbon Cycle Model in the Central Pacific Sector of the Southern Ocean. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 14(6). Portico. (doi:10.1029/2021ms002757)