Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

About: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a nonprofit organization based out in Falmouth, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Mantle (geology). The organization has 5685 authors who have published 18396 publications receiving 1202050 citations. The organization is also known as: WHOI.

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Soils and Recent Sediments

Abstract: Soils and recent marine sediments contain a complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon assemblage. There is a high degree of similarity in the molecular weight distribution of the many series of alkyl homologs of these aromatic hydrocarbons, and this distribution varies little over a wide range of depositional environments. The evidence suggests that these hydrocarbons are formed in natural fires, are dispersed and mixed by air transport, and are eventually deposited into surface sediments. The analytical, geochemical, and environmental implications of these findings are discussed.

A new coupled, one-dimensional biological-physical model for the upper ocean: Applications to the JGOFS Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site

Abstract: This paper presents a new coupled, one dimensional biological-physical model applied to the subtropical region near Bermuda. The physical component of the model, which is driven by smooth climatological forcing, successfully reproduces the long-term seasonal cycles of upper ocean temperature, salinity and boundary layer depth from Hydrostation S. The nitrogen-based biological model, which includes the effects of photoadaptation, phytoplankton aggregation, and particle remineralization in the aphotic zone, shows significant skill in capturing the major features of the annual chlorophyll field (e.g. spring bloom, deep chlorophyll maximum) and depth-integrated chlorophyll and primary production as exhibited by the U.S. JGOFS Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) data. The introduction of variable phytoplankton chlorophyll-to-nitrogen ratios is found to be important for simulating the subsurface chlorophyll maximum, and the model solutions show a realistic deep nitracline in the summer and a low annual average f -ratio of ∼0.21 compared to previous modeling work. The performance of the model solutions are weakest during the late summer, when the model can not supply enough nutrients to support the high production observed in the stratified near-surface waters. The coupled model has large winter production values, leading to a substantial export of organic material from the euphotic zone via downward turbulent mixing. The model predicts a total export production from the euphotic zone of 0.24 mol N m −2 year −1 , approximately equally partitioned between particle sinking and suspended matter detrainment. The bulk of the export production is remineralized in the shallow aphotic zone, and only a small fraction is transported below the depth of the maximum winter mixed layer and thus contributes to “biological pump”.

An overview of the 1995 SWARM shallow-water internal wave acoustic scattering experiment

Abstract: An overview is given of the July-August 1995 SWARM shallow-water internal wave acoustic scattering experiment. This experiment studied both acoustic propagation through and scattering by the linear and nonlinear internal waves found on the Mid-Atlantic Bight continental shelf, as well as the physical oceanography of the internal wavefield. In order that their goal of explaining the nature of the acoustic scattering should not be hindered by incomplete environmental knowledge, numerous instruments, both ship-deployed and moored, measured the acoustics, geophysics, and oceanography. In this paper, the authors show some of the results from the first year's analysis of the environmental and acoustic data. The environmental measurements, which are a key input to the analyses of the acoustic data, are given slightly more emphasis at this point in time. Some of the more interesting oceanographic, geophysical, and acoustical results the authors present are: evidence for the dominance of the lee-wave mechanism for soliton production, evidence for the "solibore internal tide" the "dnoidal wave" description of solitons, the inversion of chirp sonar data for bottom properties, propagation loss extraction from air-gun data, and the intensity and travel-time fluctuations seen in propagating acoustic normal modes. Directions for future research are outlined.

Carbon-cycle imbalances in the Sargasso Sea

Abstract: THE net exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean, and thus the nature of the oceanic carbon sink, is dominated by the seasonal dynamics of carbon cycling in the upper ocean. This cycle represents a balance between abiotic and biotic carbon transport into, and export out of, the ocean's upper layer. Here we report measurements of these processes made over five years in the Sargasso Sea off Bermuda, as part of the US Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). We find that the decrease in carbon stocks from the spring to the autumn in the upper 150 m of the ocean is three times larger than the measured sum of biotic and abiotic fluxes out of this layer. This discrepancy can be explained either by failure to account for horizontal advection of carbon or by inaccuracies in the fluxes of sinking particles as measured using sediment traps. Either the traps miss 80% of the sinking particles, or 70% of the carbon cycling is due to advection (or a combination of both processes is responsible). Sediment-trap measurements of the 234Th flux during this period suggest that most of the discrepancy may be due to inaccuracies in the trap methods, which would require a very general reassessment of existing ideas about particle export and remineralization of carbon in the oceans. If, on the other hand, advection is the main source of the discrepancy, the traditional one-dimensional (vertical) modelling of the oceanic carbon cycle cannot give a full account of carbon dynamics.