Lohrenz, Steven (Steve): University of Massachusetts (Project Lead)
Cai, Wei-Jun: University of Delaware (Co-Investigator)
He, Ruoying: North Carolina State University & Fathom Science (Co-Investigator)
Howden, Stephan: University of Southern Mississippi (Co-Investigator)
Liu, Mingliang: Washington State University (Co-Investigator)
Tian, Hanqin: Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, Boston College (Co-Investigator)
Fennel, Katja: Dalhousie University (Participant)
Ren, Wei: University of Kentucky (Participant)
Project Funding:
2010 - 2013
NRA: 2009 NASA: Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
Changing climate and land use practices have the potential to dramatically alter coupled hydrologic-biogeochemical processes and associated movement of water, carbon and nutrients through various terrestrial reservoirs. Such changes will ultimately influence the delivery of dissolved and particulate materials from terrestrial systems into rivers, estuaries, and coastal ocean waters. Consequences of climate– and land use–related changes will be particularly evident in large river basins and their associated coastal outflow regions. An integrated suite of models will be used in conjunction with remotely sensed as well as targeted in situ observations with the objectives of describing processes controlling fluxes on land, their coupling to riverine systems, and the delivery of materials to estuaries and the coastal ocean. Terrestrial hydrological-ecosystem models coupled with hydrological-biogeochemical models of coastal and estuarine systems will be used in conjunction with satellite and in situ observations to examine water quality, transport, and ecosystem function resulting from climate and land use change. Our objectives include the following: 1) Assemble and evaluate long term datasets for the assessment of impacts of climate variability, extreme weather events, and land use practices on transport of water, carbon and nitrogen within terrestrial systems and the delivery of materials to waterways and rivers 2) Using the Mississippi River as a testbed, develop and evaluate an integrated suite of models to describe linkages between terrestrial and riverine systems, transport of carbon and nutrients in the Mississippi river and its tributaries, and associated cycling of carbon and nutrients in coastal ocean waters 3) Evaluate uncertainty in model products and parameters and identify areas where improved model performance is needed through model refinement and data assimilation.
In 2011, the scope of this work was expanded to include specific objectives and products for the NASA Carbon Monitoring System effort. The uncertainties in coastal carbon fluxes are such that the net uptake of carbon in the coastal margins remains a poorly constrained term in the global carbon budget. The proposed research will employ a combination of models and remotely-sensed and in situ observations to develop estimates of land-ocean exchange of carbon, air-sea exchanges of carbon dioxide, and coastal to open ocean exchanges of carbon. Such information is critically needed to better constrain the contribution of coastal margins to carbon sources and sinks and improve capabilities to attribute sources and sinks to different regions as well as reducing uncertainties in estimates. The chosen region of study, the northern Gulf of Mexico, provides an excellent setting to carry out this work as there are a large number of supporting datasets and on-going programs that will complement this work. The proposed work is also closely aligned with objectives of the North American Carbon Program and the NASA Carbon Monitoring System scoping effort. Results would also benefit efforts to describe and predict how land use and land cover changes impact coastal water quality including possible effects of coastal eutrophication and hypoxia.
Publications:
Chakraborty, S., Lohrenz, S. E., Gundersen, K. 2017. Photophysiological and light absorption properties of phytoplankton communities in the river-dominated margin of the northern
G
ulf of
M
exico. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. 122(6), 4922-4938. DOI: 10.1002/2016JC012092
Lohrenz, S. E., Cai, W., Chakraborty, S., Huang, W., Guo, X., He, R., Xue, Z., Fennel, K., Howden, S., Tian, H. 2018. Satellite estimation of coastal pCO2 and air-sea flux of carbon dioxide in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Remote Sensing of Environment. 207, 71-83. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2017.12.039
Lu, C., Yu, Z., Tian, H., Hennessy, D. A., Feng, H., Al-Kaisi, M., Zhou, Y., Sauer, T., Arritt, R. 2018. Increasing carbon footprint of grain crop production in the US Western Corn Belt. Environmental Research Letters. 13(12), 124007. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aae9fe
Tian, H., Ren, W., Yang, J., Tao, B., Cai, W., Lohrenz, S. E., Hopkinson, C. S., Liu, M., Yang, Q., Lu, C., Zhang, B., Banger, K., Pan, S., He, R., Xue, Z. 2015. Climate extremes dominating seasonal and interannual variations in carbon export from the Mississippi River Basin. Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 29(9), 1333-1347. DOI: 10.1002/2014GB005068
Tian, H., Xu, R., Pan, S., Yao, Y., Bian, Z., Cai, W., Hopkinson, C. S., Justic, D., Lohrenz, S., Lu, C., Ren, W., Yang, J. 2020. Long-Term Trajectory of Nitrogen Loading and Delivery From Mississippi River Basin to the Gulf of Mexico. Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 34(5). DOI: 10.1029/2019GB006475
Tian, H., Yang, Q., Najjar, R. G., Ren, W., Friedrichs, M. A. M., Hopkinson, C. S., Pan, S. 2015. Anthropogenic and climatic influences on carbon fluxes from eastern North America to the Atlantic Ocean: A process-based modeling study. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. 120(4), 757-772. DOI: 10.1002/2014JG002760
Yu, Z., Lu, C., Cao, P., Tian, H. 2018. Long-term terrestrial carbon dynamics in the Midwestern United States during 1850-2015: Roles of land use and cover change and agricultural management. Global Change Biology. 24(6), 2673-2690. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14074
Tian, H., Lu, C., Ciais, P., Michalak, A. M., Canadell, J. G., Saikawa, E., Huntzinger, D. N., Gurney, K. R., Sitch, S., Zhang, B., Yang, J., Bousquet, P., Bruhwiler, L., Chen, G., Dlugokencky, E., Friedlingstein, P., Melillo, J., Pan, S., Poulter, B., Prinn, R., Saunois, M., Schwalm, C. R., Wofsy, S. C. 2016. The terrestrial biosphere as a net source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Nature. 531(7593), 225-228. DOI: 10.1038/nature16946
Liu, M., Tian, H., Yang, Q., Yang, J., Song, X., Lohrenz, S. E., Cai, W. 2013. Long-term trends in evapotranspiration and runoff over the drainage basins of the Gulf of Mexico during 1901-2008. Water Resources Research. 49(4), 1988-2012. DOI: 10.1002/wrcr.20180
Huang, W., Cai, W., Powell, R. T., Lohrenz, S. E., Wang, Y., Jiang, L., Hopkinson, C. S. 2012. The stoichiometry of inorganic carbon and nutrient removal in the Mississippi River plume and adjacent continental shelf. Biogeosciences. 9(7), 2781-2792. DOI: 10.5194/bg-9-2781-2012
Guo, X., Cai, W., Huang, W., Wang, Y., Chen, F., Murrell, M. C., Lohrenz, S. E., Jiang, L., Dai, M., Hartmann, J., Lin, Q., Culp, R. 2011. Carbon dynamics and community production in the Mississippi River plume. Limnology and Oceanography. 57(1), 1-17. DOI: 10.4319/lo.2012.57.1.0001
Cai, W., Hu, X., Huang, W., Murrell, M. C., Lehrter, J. C., Lohrenz, S. E., Chou, W., Zhai, W., Hollibaugh, J. T., Wang, Y., Zhao, P., Guo, X., Gundersen, K., Dai, M., Gong, G. 2011. Acidification of subsurface coastal waters enhanced by eutrophication. Nature Geoscience. 4(11), 766-770. DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1297
2015 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)
- Ocean margins as an increasing sink for the atmospheric carbon dioxide
-- (Wei-Jun Cai, Goulven Laruelle, Xinping Hu, Pierre Regnier)
[abstract]
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
