Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Sinking particles play a key role in the biological carbon pump. While previous studies have analyzed particulate carbon flux over timescales of days to years, few have been able to resolve flux variability on shorter, hourly scales at multiple depths simultaneously. This study uses an array of upward‐facing cameras, built from off‐the‐shelf components for under $500 each, to visualize particle fluxes at multiple depths during the EXPORTS campaign in 2018 in the North Pacific. This manuscript is the first comprehensive description of this tool, called GelCam, which captures a time‐lapse image sequence at 20‐min intervals of particles that settle into a polyacrylamide gel layer located at the base of a sediment trap tube. Methods are described for the design and post‐processing pipeline, in addition to two proxy methods for estimating the total particulate organic carbon flux. The GelCam‐derived fluxes modeled from individual particle images show strong agreement with the ground‐truth data obtained from coincident trap measurements. This approach helps address the need for accessible, open‐source tools to more broadly observe and quantify the role of episodic particle flux events across the global oceans.
DOI: 10.1002/lom3.10724
Language: English
Subfield: Oceanography
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,530
Awards: G329319101, G5821022313, THE MAGNITUDE OF PARTICULATE CARBON EXPORT FROM THE UPPER OCEAN AND EFFICIENCY OF ITS TRANSFER INTO THE INTERIOR REMAINS ONE OF THE LEAST PREDICTABLE PROCESSES INFLUENCING THE GLOBAL CARBON CYCLE. THE OVERARCHING GOAL OF THE EXPORTS PROGRAM IS TO DEVELOP MECHANISTIC MODELS PREDICTING THE STRENGTH AND EFFICIENCY OF THIS EXPORTED CARBON. A CENTRAL REQUIREMENT ONE MIGHT ARGUE THE CENTRAL REQUIREMENT OF THE AMBITIOUS SET OF FIELD MEASUREMENTS NECESSARY TO DEVELOP SATELLITE-DRIVEN MODELS IS ACCURATE MEASUREMENT OF SINKING PARTICLE FLUXES AND THEIR BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITIONS. THESE MEASUREMENTS MUST BE EMBEDDED IN A BROADER SUITE OF PHYSICAL BIOLOGICAL AND OPTICAL OBSERVATIONS SO A SECOND REQUIREMENT IS THAT THE TEAM QUANTIFYING PARTICLE FLUX COOPERATES AND WORKS CLOSELY WITH THE BROADER EXPORTS SCIENCE TEAM. HERE WE PROPOSE A HYPOTHESIS-DRIVEN STUDY OF PARTICLE FLUXES THAT BOTH ADVANCES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE OCEAN BIOLOGICAL CARBON PUMP AND MEETS THE BROADER PROGRAM GOALS ABOVE. THE BROAD HYPOTHESIS OF THE EXPORTS PROGRAM IS THAT THE STRENGTH AND EFFICIENCY OF THE BIOLOGICAL CARBON PUMP CAN BE PREDICTED FROM SATELLITE OCEAN COLOR OBSERVATIONS. IMPLICIT IN THIS HYPOTHESIS ARE A NUMBER OF ASSUMPTIONS WHICH MUST BE TESTED. THE SPECIFIC HYPOTHESES WE WILL ADDRESS ARE 1) THAT THE BIOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE PARTICLES SINKING OUT OF THE EUPHOTIC ZONE EXERTS SIGNIFICANT CONTROL ON BOTH THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SINKING CARBON FLUX AND ITS RATE OF ATTENUATION WITH DEPTH; AND 2) THAT TEMPORAL VARIABILITY IN THE MAGNITUDE AND ATTENUATION OF SINKING PARTICLE FLUX IS CAUSED BY BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES., G8535509796
OpenAlex ID: W4413285929