POSTER Session 2

ADVANCING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF OCEAN BIOLOGICAL CARBON PUMPS OF THE ARCTIC AND SUB-ARCTIC SEAS USING HYPERSPECTRAL OBSERVATIONS OF PLANKTON, AEROSOL, CLOUD, OCEAN ECOSYSTEM (PACE) MISSION

The Global Ocean uptakes 2.9 gigatons of carbon per year representing 30% of total fossil fuel emissions. Determining the long-term capacity of the ocean to uptake carbon from the atmosphere is critical and challenging. Ocean color observations have been used to quantify phytoplankton biomass and marine primary productivity (PP), a key process involved in the ocean biological pump of carbon. The ocean color community is at a technological turning point with the launch of NASA’s PACE. The hyperspectral data of PACE will improve the accuracy of key ocean color products such as phytoplankton biomass, but also the extraction of additional information on phytoplankton and other water constituents. Here we present a new research project supported by the Canadian Space Agency and the Transforming Climate Action initiative with the overarching objective to reduce uncertainties in the ocean biological carbon pump capacity and assess how this capacity is likely to change in eastern Canada’s oceans as the ice melts, warms, and becomes more vertically stratified. Specifically, the project aims at improving phytoplankton biomass and photo-physiological properties based on hyperspectral inversion of sun-induced fluorescence; extract phytoplankton functional types (PFTs) from PACE; and combine space-based carbon pools and PP rates and in situ autonomous floats to estimate carbon export rates and the ocean biological pump efficiency along a gradient from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The poster will outline the planned work for the next four years, aiming to foster international collaboration within the Ocean Color community.

Simon Bélanger, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR), Canada, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9172-8376

Marcel Babin, Laval University – Takuvik, Canada

Mathieu Ardyna, Laval University – Takuvik, Canada

Erin Bertrand, Dalhousie University, Canada

Emmanuel Devred, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Canada

Julien Laliberté, Maurice Lamontagne Institute, Canada

Matthieu Huot, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR), Canada

El Mahdi Bendif, Institut des Sciences de la Mer, Canada

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