Abstract
Antarctic coastal polynyas are biological hotspots in the Southern Ocean that support the abundance of high-trophic-level predators and are important for carbon cycling in the high-latitude oceans. In this study, we examined the interannual variation of summertime phytoplankton biomass in the Marguerite Bay polynya (MBP) in the western Antarctic Peninsula area, and linked such variability to the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) that dominated the southern hemisphere extratropical climate variability. Combining satellite data, atmosphere reanalysis products and numerical simulations, we found that the interannual variation of summer chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration in the MBP is significantly and negatively correlated with the spring SAM index, and weakly correlated with the summer SAM index. The negative relation between summer Chl-a and spring SAM is due to weaker spring vertical mixing under a more positive SAM condition, which would inhibit the supply of iron from deep layers into the surface euphotic layer. The negative relation between spring mixing and spring SAM results from greater precipitation rate over the MBP region in positive SAM phase, which leads to lower salinity in the ocean surface layer. The coupled physical-biological mechanisms between SAM and phytoplankton biomass revealed in this study is important for us to predict the future variations of phytoplankton biomasses in Antarctic polynyas under climate change.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Michael S. Dinniman with Old Dominion University and Jennifer A. Graham with Met Office Hadley Centre for providing the numerical model configurations, based on which we conducted the long-term simulations in this study. We also acknowledge the Shanghai Frontiers Science Center of Polar Science (SCOPS) for its support.
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Foundation item: The Key Research & Development Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China under contract No. 2022YFC2807601; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41941008 and 41876221; the Fund of Shanghai Science and Technology Committee under contract Nos 20230711100 and 21QA1404300; the Impact and Response of Antarctic Seas to Climate Change funded by the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration under contract No. IRASCC 1-02-01B; the National Key Research and Development Program of China under contract No. 2019YFC1509102; the Shanghai Pilot Program for Basic Research—Shanghai Jiao Tong University under contract No. 21TQ1400201.
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Jiang, N., Zhang, Z., Zhang, R. et al. The connection of phytoplankton biomass in the Marguerite Bay polynya of the western Antarctic Peninsula to the Southern Annular Mode. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 43, 35–47 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-023-2201-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-023-2201-y