Distributional models of ocean carbon export

Each year, surface ocean ecosystems export sinking particles containing gigatons of carbon into the ocean's interior. This particle flux connects the entire ocean microbiome and constitutes a fundamental aspect of marine microbial ecology and biogeochemical cycles. Particle flux is also variable and intricately complex, impeding its mechanistic or quantitative description. In this thesis we pair compilations of available data with novel mathematical models to explore the relationships between particle flux and other key variables - temperature, net primary production, and depth. Particular use is made of (probability) distributional descriptions of quantities that are known to vary appreciably. First, using established thermodynamic dependencies for primary production and respiration, a simple mechanistic model is developed relating export efficiency (i.e. the fraction of primary production that is exported out of the surface ocean via particle flux) to temperature.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Joint Program in Physical Oceanography

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Barry, Brendan(Brendan Cael)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Michael J. Follows.

• Joint Program in Physical Oceanography.
• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122321

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/122321