Abstract
The marine shelf areas in subtropical and tropical regions represent only 35% of the total shelf areas globally, but receive a disproportionately large amount of water (65%) and sediment (58%) discharges that enter such environments. Small rivers and/or streams that drain the mountainous areas in these climatic zones deliver the majority of the sediment and nutrient inputs to these narrow shelf environments; such inputs often occur as discrete, episodic introductions associated with storm events. To gain insight into the linked biogeochemical behavior of subtropical/tropical mountainous watershed-coastal ocean ecosystems, this work describes the use of a buoy system to monitor autonomously water quality responses to land-derived nutrient inputs and physical forcing associated with local storm events in the coastal ocean of southern Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaii, USA. The data represent 2.5 years of near-real time observations at a fixed station, collected concurrently with spatially distributed synoptic sampling over larger sections of Kaneohe Bay. Storm events cause most of the fluvial nutrient, particulate, and dissolved organic carbon inputs to Kaneohe Bay. Nutrient loadings from direct rainfall and/or terrestrial runoff produce an immediate increase in the N:P ratio of bay waters up to values of 48 and drive phytoplankton biomass growth. Rapid uptake of such nutrient subsidies by phytoplankton causes rapid declines of N levels, return to N-limited conditions, and subsequent decline of phytoplankton biomass over timescales ranging from a few days to several weeks, depending on conditions and proximity to the sources of runoff. The enhanced productivity may promote the drawing down of pCO2 and lowering of surface water column carbonate saturation states, and in some events, a temporary shift from N to P limitation. The productivity-driven CO2 drawdown may temporarily lead to air-to-sea transfer of atmospheric CO2 in a system that is on an annual basis a source of CO2 to the atmosphere due to calcification and perhaps heterotrophy. Storms may also strongly affect proximal coastal zone pCO2 and hence carbonate saturation state due to river runoff flushing out high pCO2 soil and ground waters. Mixing of the CO2-charged water with seawater causes a salting out effect that releases CO2 to the atmosphere. Many subtropical and tropical systems throughout the Pacific region are similar to Kaneohe Bay, and our work provides an important indication of the variability and range of CO2 dynamics that are likely to exist elsewhere. Such variability must be taken into account in any analysis of the direction and magnitude of the air–sea CO2 exchange for the integrated coastal ocean, proximal and distal. It cannot be overemphasized that this research illustrates several examples of how high frequency sampling by a moored autonomous system can provide details about ecosystem responses to stochastic atmospheric forcing that are commonly missed by traditional synoptic observational approaches. Finally, the work exemplifies the utility of combining synoptic sampling and real-time autonomous observations to elucidate the biogeochemical and physical responses of coastal subtropical/tropical coral reef ecosystems to climatic perturbations.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express their appreciation for the logistical support provided by the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), especially Dr. Jo Ann Leong, director of HIMB, and her staff including Jim Lakey, Fritz King, Wayne Nakamoto, Jimmy Olson, and Darren Oshiro. Much of our work in Kaneohe Bay would also not have been possible without the continued cooperation and assistance of NOAA/PMEL engineering and technical personnel, in particular Noah Lawrence-Slavas, Stacy Maenner-Jones, Christian Meinig, and Sylvia Musielewicz. We are also grateful for constructive comments provided by Stephen V. Smith and two anonymous reviewers; their contributions helped substantially improve this manuscript.
This work was supported in part by a grant/cooperative agreement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Project R/EL-33, which is sponsored by the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program, SOEST, under Institutional Grant No. NA05OAR4171048 from NOAA Office of Sea Grant, Department of Commerce. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA or any of its subagencies, and through NSF grant OCE0749404 to Fred T. Mackenzie and Abraham Lerman. This is UNIHI-SEAGRANT-JC-05-43 and SOEST contribution number 7950.
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Drupp, P., De Carlo, E.H., Mackenzie, F.T. et al. Nutrient Inputs, Phytoplankton Response, and CO2 Variations in a Semi-Enclosed Subtropical Embayment, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. Aquat Geochem 17, 473–498 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-010-9115-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-010-9115-y