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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Regional scale characteristics of the seasonal cycle of chlorophyll in the Southern Ocean
Biogeosciences, Volume 8, No. 10, Year 2011
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Description
In the Ocean, the seasonal cycle is the mode that couples climate forcing to ecosystem response in production, diversity and carbon export. A better characterisation of the ecosystem's seasonal cycle therefore addresses an important gap in our ability to estimate the sensitivity of the biological pump to climate change. In this study, the regional characteristics of the seasonal cycle of phytoplankton biomass in the Southern Ocean are examined in terms of the timing of the bloom initiation, its amplitude, regional scale variability and the importance of the climatological seasonal cycle in explaining the overall variance. The seasonal cycle was consequently defined into four broad zonal regions; the subtropical zone (STZ), the transition zone (TZ), the Antarctic circumpolar zone (ACZ) and the marginal ice zone (MIZ). Defining the Southern Ocean according to the characteristics of its seasonal cycle provides a more dynamic understanding of ocean productivity based on underlying physical drivers rather than climatological biomass. The response of the biology to the underlying physics of the different seasonal zones resulted in an additional classification of four regions based on the extent of inter-annual seasonal phase locking and the magnitude of the integrated seasonal biomass. This regionalisation contributes towards an improved understanding of the regional differences in the sensitivity of the Southern Oceans ecosystem to climate forcing, potentially allowing more robust predictions of the effects of long term climate trends. © 2011 Author(s).
Authors & Co-Authors
Thomalla, Sandy J.
South Africa, Pretoria
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Fauchereau, Nicolas C.
South Africa, Pretoria
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Swart, Sebastiaan
South Africa, Pretoria
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Monteiro, Pedro M.S.
South Africa, Pretoria
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Statistics
Citations: 175
Authors: 4
Affiliations: 2
Identifiers
Doi:
10.5194/bg-8-2849-2011
e-ISSN:
17264189
Research Areas
Environmental