Carbon Cycle in the Russian Arctic Seas

336 Pages·2004·13.55 MB·English

by  Dr. Alexander A. Vetrov

Carbon Cycle in the Russian Arctic Seas
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH
Alexander A. Vetrov
Evgenii A. Romankevich
Carbon Cycle
in the Russian
Arctic Seas
With 93 Figures
, Springer
Dr. Alexander A. Vetrov
Prof. Evgenii A. Romankevich
P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, RAS
N akhimovsky prospect 36
117997 Moscow
Russia
E-mail: [email protected]
[email protected]
ISBN 978-3-642-05991-9 ISBN 978-3-662-06208-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-06208-1
Library ofCongress Control Number: 2004106661
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v
Preface
At present, studies of the Arctic Basin are of particular importance to the world
scientific community due to the strong influence of this region on the global
climate, its enormous mineral and hydrocarbon resources, the poor knowledge
about the polar biosphere, and the growing anthropogenic pollution of the Arctic
(Gramberg et al. 2000; KIuev 2000). Therefore, the forthcoming century is
sometimes justly named "the century of the Arctic." Global climatic changes
attract the close attention of scientists from all over the world. The prevalent
concept that climate warming is a minor positive anomaly in the planetary
temperature is documented by the analyses of hundreds of thousands of deep-sea
samples. Forecasts predict a tendency to even stronger warming over the next
decades (Watson et al. 1998). The climate warming is accompanied by a reduction
in the area and thickness of the ice cover, a negative balance of the Arctic glaciers,
a northward migration of the arboreal front, an increase in the permafrost
temperature in the Russian Arctic, and a tendency to the growth of biological
productivity (Serreze et al. 2000; Morison et al. 2001). Carbon cycling strongly
affects the earth's climate;, its study in the Arctic Seas of Russia is an essential
link in the solution of the global climate change problem.
In this book, carbon cycling in the Arctic seas of Russia is considered in terms
of biogeochemistry, implying the leading role of living organic matter and carbon
compounds in the functioning of the biosphere. Biogeochemistry was first
developed by V.r. Vernadsky and now forms the basis for scientific ideas on the
biosphere and noosphere.
The concepts of biogeochemistry and a multidisciplinary consideration of the
interactions between the biological, chemical, and geological processes in the
carbon cycling provide an appropriate alternative to the narrow specialized
approach to the problem. The box (reservoir) model of carbon cycling was
partially realized on the basis of the consideration of fluxes, masses, distribution,
and balance of different forms of carbon in the land-sea-bottom sediment system,
including the horizontal fluxes of carbon in the land-sea system and the
photosynthetic, bioproductive, sedimentary, and diagenetic fluxes. Gaseous
carbon exchange in the atmosphere-sea water system is left beyond our
assessment due to the scarceness data for both the Arctic Seas of Russia and the
Arctic Ocean.
Since the second half of the 20th century, complex systems such as carbon
cycling have usually been studied on the matter-energy level considering both the
matter and energy fluxes. It should be noted that the parameters of the organic
carbon cycling are representative for the organic matter content and hence provide
VI
information on the fluxes of both matter and potential (chemical) energy. Carbon
masses can increase or decrease in the course of their circulation; meanwhile, the
flux of chemical energy always reduces after it enters the cycling. This important
feature of carbon cycling is manifested in the dissipation of chemical energy,
which is partly transformed to heat and partly preserved as reduced compounds of
carbon and other chemical elements. The latter represents a good example of the
storage of information as one of the fundamental properties of the matter and one
of the basic scientific concepts (the trinity of matter, energy, and information).
The mineral resources of the earth's interior are the primary source of carbon.
The living matter has been the main agent and the driving force for the carbon
cycling in the biosphere for over 3.5 billion years. Under the thermodynamic
conditions of the present-day and earlier biospheres, the only way for organic
matter to gain the property of infinity is to revolve within a closed process. The
strategy of life in the biosphere is founded on the fact that this "almost" closure,
provides the accumulation of organic matter in soils, peat, coal, and oil, without
which higher forms of life could never develop with all the after effects of its
expansion in the nature.
The concept of various-scale cyclic processes of development lies in the basis
of natural sciences. The ideas of major geological circulation of matter and of
biogeochemical cycles as its components are fundamental concepts in the earth's
sciences. The essence of the biogeochemical carbon cycle consists of the
transformation of inorganic carbon forms to organic compounds and carbonates
during biosynthesis using both solar energy (photosynthesis) and mineral
resources (primary chemosynthesis). Later on, these compounds are decomposed
and dissolved in trophic webs of the biogeochemically active zones (mainly) and
then return into the cycle as oxidized carbon and other nutrients. In this book, we
assess carbon cycling on the time scale of the order of a few years. The maximum
period is defined by the estimates of the burial of organic and carbonate carbon
(hundreds of years) and by the turnover times of the dissolved organic carbon in
the Arctic Seas of Russia.
The authors are grateful to the geochemists, geologists, biologists, and
hydrophysicists from the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology; the Institute of
Microbiology; the Institute "Okeangeologiya"; the Arctic and Antarctic Institute;
the Geographic Dep. of the Moscow State University; the State Hydrological
Institute; and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.
We would like to express sincere thanks to A.Vasil'ev, V.Vedernikov,
S.Lyutsarev, E.Safonova, V.Peresypkin, S.lvanov, L.Kodina, S.Koukina, who
kindly allowed us to use their unpublished material and for assisting in the
preparation of the English version of the book with available data for 2000-2003.
We are grateful to the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of
Science of the Russian Federation-the Federal Purposive Scientific-Technical
Program, Project "Processes of Environment Changes in the Coastal Zone from
Hydrochemical and Biochemical Indicators" (1998-2000) and the "World Ocean"
Federal Purposive Program, Section "Global Carbon Cycling in the Ocean and at
Its Boundaries with the Atmosphere and the Lithosphere," project nos. 2, 5, and 6.
VII
This study was also supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research,
project nos. 94-05-17307, 97-05-64076, 00-05-64410, and 03-05-64218.
VIII
Contents
1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1
2 Features of the Arctic Seas of Russia and Their Ecosystems ...................•.... 5
2.1 Brief History of the Studies ......................................................................... 5
2.2 Physical Geography ..................................................................................... 6
2.3 Features of Geological Structure and Sedimentation ................................. 12
2.4 Hydrology .................................................................................................. 24
2.5 Hydrochemistry ......................................................................................... 34
2.5.1 Oxygen ............................................................................................... 35
2.5.2 pH ....................................................................................................... 46
2.5.3 Alkalinity ............................................................................................ 51
2.5.4 Nutrients (P, N, and Si) ...................................................................... 54
3 Biological Production of the Arctic Seas of Russia ........................................ 67
3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 67
3.2 Barents Sea ................................................................................................ 71
3.3 White Sea ................................................................................................... 99
3.4. Kara Sea .................................................................................................. 105
3.5. Seas of the East Arctic ............................................................................ 117
4 Particulate Matter and Vertical Carbon Fluxes in the Water-Bottom
System ................................................................................................................. 133
4.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 133
4.2 Barents Sea .............................................................................................. 135
4.3 White Sea ................................................................................................. 155
IX
4.4 Kara Sea ................................................................................................... 163
4.5 Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi Seas ................................................. 17 5
4.6 Carbon Fluxes from the Photic Zone to the Seafloor ............................... 182
4.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 196
5 Horizontal Carbon Fluxes in the Land-8ea System ................................ 201
5.1 Riverine Runoff and Carbon Fluxes ........................................................ 201
5.1.1 Water Runoff and Particulate Matter Supply ................................... 201
5.1.2 Carbon runoff .................................................................................. 208
5.2 Coastal Abrasion and Carbon Fluxes ....................................................... 216
5.3 Aerosols and Eolian Carbon Fluxes ......................................................... 220
5.4 Underground and Glacial Runoff. ............................................................ 224
5.4.1 Underground Runoff ........................................................................ 224
5.4.2 Ice and Glacial Discharge ................................................................. 226
5.4.3 Interstitial Waters ............................................................................. 227
6 Carbon in the Bottom Sediments .................................................................. 229
6.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 229
6.2 Brief History of the Studies of Carbon and Organic Matter
Composition ............................................................................................. 230
6.3 Selected Features of the Polar Lithogenesis ............................................. 231
6.4 Organo-Chemical Composition of the Sediments .................................... 234
6.5 Distribution and Accumulation Rate of Carbon in the Bottom
Sediments ................................................................................................. 247
6.5.1 Contents ofTOC and C in Different Types of the Sediments ...... 247
carb
6.5.2 Distribution ofTOC and its Accumulation Rate in the Bottom
Sediments ......................................................................................... 250
6.5.3 Distribution ofC and its Accumulation Rates in the Bottom
carb
Sediments ......................................................................................... 258
7 Elements of Carbon Balance and Cycling in the Arctic Seas of Russia ..... 265
7.1 Fluxes and Balance of Masses ................................................................. 265
7.2 Ecological Features of the Arctic Seas and their lnfluence on Carbon
Cycling ..................................................................................................... 279
References .......................................................................................................... 287
Index ................................................................................................................... 327
x
Abbreviations
ASR -Arctic Seas of Russia
TOC - total organic carbon
Ccarb - carbonate carbon (solid phase)
Corg - organic carbon
OM - organic matter
PM - particulate matter
POC - particulate organic carbon
DOC - dissolved organic carbon
DIC - dissolved inorganic carbon
PP - primary production
C/N - ratio of organic carbon to nitrogen
CPI - odd-even predominance index of the n-alkanes
Chl a - chlorophyll "a"
N- N 0 nitrogen of nitrates
3- -
N-N02- - nitrogen of nitrites
P-P04--- - phosphor of phosphates
Si-Si03-- - silicon ofmetasilicic acid
AlkICI - alkaline-chlorine coefficient
HC - hydrocarbons (n-alkanes)
PA H - polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons
HA - humic acids
Nph - naphthenic hydrocarbons
ROM - residual organic matter
FDoc - total flux of DOC from land
Fpoc - total flux ofPOC from land
FTER - total terrigene (allochtonous) flux (Fpoc + FDod
FpHs - total photosynthetic flux ofTOC
F SEAFL - total flux to seafloor
FC - fossilization coefficient
AANII - Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St.Petersburg, Russia
GUNIO VMF - General Government for Navigation and Oceanogr. of Navy
KNC RAN - Kola Science Center Russian Academy of Sciences
MGU - Moscow State University
MMBI - Murmansk Marine Biological Institute, Murmansk, Russia
PINRO - Polar Institute for Fishery and Oceanography
VNll - All-Russia Research Institute "Ocean geology"
Okeangeologiya
VNIRO - All-Russia Research Institute for Fishery and Oceanography