Pierre-Amaël Auger

We tested if near-shore iron (Fe)-limitation of phytoplankton occurs near the strong upwelling center associated with Lengua de Vaca Point at 30°S in the Humboldt Current System. Fe-amended and control microcosms showed differences in variable fluorescence parameters (dark-adapted PSII maximum quantum efficiency, functional absorption cross-section of PSII, and the time constant for quinone QA oxidation) that were consistent with Fe-limitation. Evidence for Fe-limitation was strongest at a site within 4 km from shore of Lengua de Vaca Point, where warmer, low chlorophyll offshore waters came in due to an upwelling relaxation event, and weak at a site to the north of Lengua de Vaca Point with higher initial chlorophyll. Alleviation of Fe-limitation in waters increased chlorophyll and particulate organic nitrogen (PON) but did not significantly affect particulate organic carbon (POC) or opal. Fe-addition at another nearshore site caused only an increase in opal, but not changes in chlorophyll, PON, or POC. The diatom Pseudo-nitzschia sp., potential producers of the neurotoxin domoic acid, increased upon Fe addition. Increases in domoic acid correlated with alleviation of Fe-limitation indicated by variable fluorescence. Scallop larvae consumed Fe-amended phytoplankton. This study confirms Fe-limitation of primary production can occur in very nearshore waters in the Humboldt Current System where the continental shelf is exceptionally narrow. Besides increasing phytoplankton productivity, inputs of Fe might increase phytoplankton toxicity, affecting other trophic levels. Coastal and even neritic ecosystems in this region may be especially sensitive to alteration of Fe input whether due to global change or local contamination.

Studies assessing potential measures to counteract the marine deoxygenation attributed to anthropogenic activities have been conducted in a few coastal environments and at regional scale, but not yet on a global scale. One way toward global scale artificial oxygenation would be to use oxygen produced as a by-product from hydrogen-production through electrolysis. The low-carbon footprint renewable production of hydrogen from offshore wind energy offers such a possibility. Here, we assessed the potential of this artificial oxygenation method on a global scale using a coupled physical-biogeochemical numerical model. The anthropogenic oxygen source scenario assumes worldwide adoption of hydrogen, considering demographic changes and the feasibility of offshore wind turbine deployment. Following this scenario, artificial oxygenation had a negligible effect on the overall oxygen inventory (an increase of 0.07%) but showed a reduction in the overall volume of Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZs) between 1.1% and 2.4%. Despite the decrease in the mean OMZ volume globally, OMZs display distinct and contrasting regional patterns notably due to the oxygen impacts on the nitrogen cycle. Artificial oxygenation can inhibit denitrification resulting in a net gain of nitrate that promotes locally and remotely increased biological productivity and consequent respiration. Increased respiration could ultimately lead to an oxygen loss at and beyond injection sites as in the Tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean and particularly expand the Bay of Bengal OMZ. In contrast, the tropical OMZ shrinkage in the Atlantic Ocean is attributed to oxygen enrichment induced by advective transport into the OMZ, while the absence of denitrification in this area precludes any biochemical feedback effect on oxygen levels. These results suggest that the impacts of artificial oxygenation on oxygen concentrations and ecosystems are highly non-linear. It can produce unexpected regional responses that can occur beyond the injection sites which make them difficult to forecast.

Eastern boundary upwelling systems feature strong zonal gradients of physical and biological properties between cool, productive coastal oceans and warm, oligotrophic subtropical gyres. Zonal currents and jets (striations) are therefore likely to contribute to the transport of water properties between coastal and open oceanic regions. For the first time, multi-sensor satellite data are used to characterize the time-mean signatures of striations in sea surface temperature (SST), salinity (SSS), and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) in subtropical eastern North/South Pacific (ENP/ESP) upwelling systems. In the ENP, tracers exhibit striated patterns extending up to ~2500 km offshore. Striated signals in SST and SSS are highly correlated with quasi-zonal jets, suggesting that these jets contribute to SST/SSS mesoscale patterns via zonal advection. Striated Chl-a anomalies are collocated with sea surface height (SSH) bands, a possible result of mesoscale eddy trains trapping nutrients and forming striated signals. In the ESP, the signature of striations is only found in SST and coincides with the SSH bands, consistently with quasi-zonal jets located outside major zonal tracer gradients. An interplay between large-scale SST/SSS advection by the quasi-zonal jets, mesoscale SST/SSS advection by the large-scale meridional flow, and eddy advection may explain the persistent ENP hydrographic signature of striations. These results underline the importance of quasi-zonal jets for surface tracer structuring at the mesoscale.

Eastern boundary upwelling systems feature strong zonal gradients of physical and biological ocean properties between cool, productive coastal oceans and warm, oligotrophic subtropical gyres. Zonal currents and jets (striations) are therefore likely to contribute to the transport of water properties between coastal and open oceanic regions. Multi-sensor satellite data are used to characterize the signatures of striations in sea surface temperature (SST), salinity (SSS), and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) in subtropical eastern North/South Pacific (ENP/ESP) upwelling systems. In the ENP, tracers exhibit striated patterns extending up to ~2500 km offshore. Striations in SST and SSS are highly correlated with quasi-zonal jets, suggesting that these jets contribute to SST/SSS mesoscale patterns via zonal advection. Chl-a striations are collocated with sea surface height (SSH) bands, a possible result of mesoscale eddy trains trapping nutrients and forming striated signals. In the ESP, striations are only found in SST and coincide with SSH bands, consistently with quasi-zonal jets located outside major zonal tracer gradients. An interplay between large-scale SST/SSS advection by the quasi-zonal jets, mesoscale SST/SSS advection by the large-scale meridional flow and eddy advection may explain the persistent ENP hydrographic striations. These results underline the importance of quasi-zonal jets for surface tracer structuring at the mesoscale.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) produces global marine environment conditions that can cause changes in abundance and distribution of distant fish populations worldwide. Understanding mechanisms acting locally on fish population dynamics is crucial to develop forecast skill useful for fisheries management. The present work addresses the role played by ENSO on the round sardinella population biomass and distribution in the central-southern portion of the Canary Current Upwelling System (CCUS). A combined physical-biogeochemical framework is used to understand the climate influence on the hydrodynamical conditions in the study area. Then, an evolutionary individual-based model is used to simulate the round sardinella spatio-temporal biomass variability. According to model experiments, anomalous oceanographic conditions forced by El Niño along the African coast cause anomalies in the latitudinal migration pattern of the species. A robust anomalous increase and decrease of the simulated round sardinella biomass is identified in winter off the Cape Blanc and the Saharan coast region, respectively, in response to El Niño variations. The resultant anomalous pattern is an alteration of the normal migration between the Saharan and the Mauritanian waters. It is primarily explained by the mod- ulating role that El Niño exerts on the currents off Cape Blanc, modifying therefore the normal migration of round sardinella in the search of acceptable temperature conditions. This climate signature can be potentially predicted up to six months in advance based on El Niño conditions in the Pacific.

Regional high resolution biogeochemical modeling studies generaly use an oceanic model forced by prescribed atmospheric conditions. The computational cost of such approach is far lower than using an high resolution ocean-atmosphere coupled model. However, forced oceanic models cannot represent adequately the atmospheric reponse to the oceanic mesoscale (~10-100km) structures and the impact on the oceanic dynamics.To assess the bias introduce by the use of a forced model, we compare here a regional high resolution (1/12º) ocean-atmosphere coupled model with oceanic simulations forced by the outputs of the coupled simulation. Several classical forcing strategies are compared : bulk formulae, prescribed stress, prescribed heat fluxes with or without Sea Surface Temperature (SST) restoring term, .... We study the Chile Eastern Boundary Upwelling System, and the oceanic model includes a biogeochemical component,The coupled model oceanic mesoscale impacts the atmosphere through surface current and SST anomalies. Surface currents mainly affect the wind stress while SST impacts both the wind stress and the heat fluxes. In the forced simulations, mesoscale structures generated by the model internal variability does not correspond to those of the coupled simulation. According to the forcing strategy, the atmospheric conditions are not modified by the forced model mesoscale, or the modifications are not realistic. The regional dynamics (coastal upwelling, mesoscale activity, …) is affected, with impact on the biogeochemical activity.  This work was supported by the FONDECYT project 3180472 (Chile), with computational support of the NLHPC from the Universidad de Chile, the HPC from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso and the Irene HPC from the GENCI at the CEA (France).

The vertical variability in the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) in the eastern South Pacific (ESP; 0–40°S) is characterized by the influence of anticyclonic intrathermocline eddies (ITEs), which are subsurface‐intensified mesoscale features that are frequently generated in the coastal upwelling zone off Peru and Chile. The unique lens‐shaped signatures that ITEs leave on temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen vertical distributions are used as proxies to assess their influences on vertical OMZ boundaries and thickness. Data from in situ profiles in the region (World Ocean Database and Argo databases) are used in correlation analyses between anomalous depths (and vertical displacements) of oxyclines and isopycnals/isotherms, together with an objective eddy detection method based on satellite altimetry to identify the location of such profiles (i.e., outside or inside cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies). The results indicate that most of the vertical fluctuations in the climatological OMZ have a lens‐shaped signature and that those at the mesoscale are largely due to ITEs. ITEs are a main driver of the upper oxycline variability in the coastal band, the coastal transition zone (CTZ, 3–10° from the coast) and beyond at mid‐latitudes (12–26°S). The influence of ITEs on the upper and lower oxycline variability is mostly observed within the horizontal (offshore) climatological boundary of the OMZ, suggesting that ITEs play a role in the OMZ offshore extension in the ESP. ITEs may produce mesoscale variations in the thickness of the surface‐oxygenated layer, resulting in potential changes in prey‐predator interactions and in food web functioning.

In recent years, quasi-zonal mesoscale jet-like features, also called “striations”, have been ubiquitously detected in the time-mean circulation of the world ocean using satellite altimetry and in situ data. These alternating bands of eastward/westward flow are able to advect and mix physical properties. Yet, their impact on biogeochemistry, and potentially marine ecosystems, has not been assessed yet.In eastern boundary upwelling systems, a mesoscale structuration of biogeochemical properties may be associated to striations through the interaction of zonal flows with sharp coastal-offshore background gradients (stirring). Transport patterns by mesoscale eddies (trapping) may also be involved as striations were noticeably suggested to result from the organization of the mesoscale eddy field as preferred eddy tracks in the eastern South Pacific upwelling system (off central Chile).In this region, we evaluate the expression of striations in satellite records of ocean color and in a set of numerically simulated biogeochemical tracers (chlorophyll, carbon, primary production, oxygen, nutrients). A multi-decadal hindcast simulation of the physical-biogeochemical dynamics was run over the period 1984-2013 using the ROMS-PISCES (for Regional Oceanic Modeling System - Pelagic Interactions Scheme for Carbon and Ecosystem Studies) platform at an eddy-resolving resolution. High-pass spatial filtering is used to remove the large-scale signal in time-averaged satellite data and model outputs, and subsequently evaluate the match between striations and biogeochemical tracer anomalies in the model and observations. The relation between striations and the shape of the coastal-offshore gradient of the phytoplankton biomass and the oxygen-minimum zone is then deduced in the CTZ, and further in the open ocean region. The fraction of tracer anomalies associated to striations is quantified, and the respective potential role of stirring and eddy trapping is explored by matching quasi-zonal bands of sea level anomaly, geostrophic currents and biogeochemical tracers on moving frames of variable widths from 3 months to several years. The role played by eddy trapping is then confirmed by a composite analysis based upon automated eddy tracking.

Iron is known to be the limiting nutrient for the phytoplankton growth over ~40% of the global ocean and to impact the structure of marine ecosystems. Dissolved iron (DFe) is assumed to be the only form available to phytoplankton while particulate iron (PFe) has mostly been considered for its role in the biogenic iron remineralization and induced scavenging. Therefore, most studies focused on the nature of DFe external sources to the ocean (i.e., eolian dust, riverine fluxes, hydrothermal sources, and sediment) and their quantification, which still remain uncertain. Among these external sources, the sedimentary sources have been shown to be underestimated. Moreover, the iron supply from sediments has been documented to be often larger in the particle fraction. Here we test the impacts of an iron sediment source of inorganic particulate iron (PFe_Inorg) on global DFe and phytoplankton distribution. We use experimentally acquired knowledge to test a parameterization of a PFe_Inorg pool in a global biogeochemical model and compare with published indirect estimation. Depending on the parameterization of its dissolution and sinking speed, the PFe_Inorg can noticeably enrich water masses in DFe during its transport from the sediment to the open ocean, notably in regions not usually accessible to external DFe inputs. Indeed, the fact that DFe is prone to scavenging reduces the impact of equivalent Fe inputs from sediments in the dissolved form in those regions far from the sediment sources. PFe_Inorg thereby has the potential to fuel the phytoplankton growth in offshore regions impacting the coastal‐offshore chlorophyll gradient.