Assessing Carbon Properties in Coastal Waters with a New Observing System Testbed
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2022-11-16
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This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
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Abstract
Large rainfall events over land can lead to a
substantial flux of carbon and nutrients to estuaries and the
coastal ocean. In the mid-Atlantic on the east coast of North
America (35° - 42° N), these events often happen due to tropical
storm activity as well as less predictable anomalously large
midlatitude storms or abrupt spring snow melt runoff. Storms can
directly impact the coastal carbon cycle via export of carbon from
land to sea, while also stimulating phytoplankton production due
to the influx of nutrients to the coastal ocean. To assess the impact
of high precipitation and river flow events on the coastal carbon
cycle, we have integrated multiple observing platforms in an
analytical framework to dynamically observe carbon-related
properties. The new observing system testbed (NOS-T) allows for
an estimate of phytoplankton and organic carbon stocks in the
surface ocean, with a goal of providing near real time analytical
capability. A case study of high river discharge in the mid-Atlantic
in the summer and fall of 2018 and 2021 were used to examine how
riverine carbon manifests along the land-estuary-ocean
continuum particularly in Chesapeake Bay.