Phytoplankton blooms of the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi are known to produce CO₂, causing less uptake of atmospheric CO₂ by the ocean, but a global assessment of this phenomenon has so far not been quantified. Therefore, here we quantify the increase in CO₂ partial pressure (ΔpCO₂) at the ocean surface within E. huxleyi blooms for polar and subpolar seas using an 18 year ocean color time series (1998–2015). When normalized to pCO₂ in the absence of bloom, the mean and maximum ΔpCO₂ values within the bloom areas varied between 21.0%–43.3% and 31.6%–62.5%, respectively. These results might have appreciable implications for climatology, marine chemistry, and ecology.

Making use of the OC CCI (Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative) satellite data, and based on the developed both Emiliania huxleyi bloom contouring methodologies and binary masks, areas of coccolithophore growth were distinguished without supervision from locations of mass developments of other algae. On these grounds, and employing special processing algorithms, multi-year time series of variations in occurrence, surficial extent, and content of particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) within E. huxleyi blooming areas in the North, Norwegian, Greenland, Barents, and Bering Seas were obtained for the time period 1998–2013. Analysis of algorithmic processing of the OC CCI data permitted to reveal the spatio-temporal sequence of E. huxleyi blooming events in the above seas of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. During the intra-annual cycle, E. huxleyi blooms advance from temperate to higher latitudes along the pathways of the Gulf Stream propagation to the north. Annually, the blooms arise in the vicinity of the Great Britain southern extremity, and further on move northward along the western coast of this Island Country, round it to eventually appear first in the North and Norwegian Seas (in early June), then in the Greenland Sea (in late June), and finally in the Barents Sea (in late July–early September). The regularities in dates of bloom outbreak and their duration are revealed. The bloom areas in the North Atlantic–Arctic water are the lowest in the Greenland Sea (10,000–30,000 km²) and by an order of magnitude higher in the Barents Sea. The same pattern holds for the total PIC content within E. huxleyi blooms: 400 t–14 kt in the Greenland Sea and about 0.35 Mt in the Barents Sea. In the Bering Sea, the temporal and spatial dynamics of E. huxleyi development proved to be highly irregular: before and after the 1997–2001 period of high intensity of this phenomenon, the blooms are sporadic, their extent and PIC production are either very low or insignificant. Regarding the range of E. huxleyi bloom areas in the Bering Sea during 1997–2001, it is rather similar to that of the Barents Sea. However, the PIC content in the Bering Sea, as compared to that in the Barents Sea, is higher by a factor of about two with maximum values reaching 0.4 Mt and, on one occasion (in 2001), even about 0.7 Mt.

Based on the method developed for the delineation of E. huxleyi blooms, a new technique is achieved for (1) the automated detection of E. huxleyiblooms among coexisting massive blooms of microalgae...

This study examines the role of increased Indian Ocean warming and positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) events on the surface chlorophyll concentration in the Eastern Arabian Sea (EAS) during the period 1998 to 2014. Remotely sensed surface chlorophyll concentration – during the month of October when IOD strength is maximum – at three selected areas in the EAS, viz., the central eastern Arabian Sea (CEAS, 73° E–76° E, 13° N–18° N), south eastern Arabian Sea (SEAS, 74° E–77° E, 8° N–13° N) and the southern tip of India (TIP, 74° E–78° E, 5° N–8° N) shows a steady decreasing trend, though not statistically significant. The EAS also has a higher warming trend when compared to the western basin during the study period. Our analysis has shown that in the EAS, local surface winds, remote forcing by equatorial winds and the surface and sub-surface oceanic circulation features are less (respectively more) favorable for inducing coastal upwelling during positive (respectively negative) IOD years. The Dipole Mode Index (DMI) and surface chlorophyll concentration in the EAS is significantly and negatively correlated, pointing to the fact that in the event of occurrence of frequent positive IOD years under a global warming regime, the surface chlorophyll concentration is likely to decrease during fall.

A 19-year (1998–2016) continuous dataset is presented of coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi distributions and activity, i.e. the release of CaCO₃ in water and the decrease of uptake of dissolved CO₂ by Emiliania huxleyi cells (e.g. Kondrik et al., 2018a), in Arctic and sub-Arctic seas. The dataset is based on optical remote-sensing data (mostly OC CCI data) with assimilation of different relevant in situ observations, preprocessed with authorial algorithms. Alongside bloom locations, we provide both detailed information on E. huxleyi impacts on carbon balance and the sub-datasets of quantified coccolith concentrations, particulate inorganic carbon content and CO₂ partial pressure in water driven by coccolithophores. All data are presented on a regular 4×4 km grid at a temporal resolution of 8 days. The paper describes the theoretical and methodological basis for all processing and modelling steps. The data are available on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1402033.

Увеличение концентрации CO 2 в атмосферном столбе над областью цветения E. huxleyi: конкретные случаи в водах Северной Атлантики и Арктики