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Hydrothermal activity occurs in all ocean basins, releasing high concentrations of key trace elements and isotopes (TEIs) into the oceans. Importantly, the calculated rate of entrainment of the entire ocean volume through turbulently mixing buoyant hydrothermal plumes is so vigorous as to be comparable to that of deep-ocean thermohaline circulation. Consequently, biogeochemical processes active within deep-ocean hydrothermal plumes have long been known to have the potential to impact global-scale biogeochemical cycles. More recently, new results from GEOTRACES have revealed that plumes rich in dissolved Fe, an important micronutrient that is limiting to productivity in some areas, are widespread above mid-ocean ridges and extend out into the deep-ocean interior. While Fe is only one element among the full suite of TEIs of interest to GEOTRACES, these preliminary results are important because they illustrate how inputs from seafloor venting might impact the global biogeochemical budgets of many other TEIs. To determine the global impact of seafloor venting, however, requires two key questions to be addressed: (i) What processes are active close to vent sites that regulate the initial high-temperature hydrothermal fluxes for the full suite of TEIs that are dispersed through non-buoyant hydrothermal plumes? (ii) How do those processes vary, globally, in response to changing geologic settings at the seafloor and/or the geochemistry of the overlying ocean water? In this paper, we review key findings from recent work in this realm, highlight a series of key hypotheses arising from that research and propose a series of new GEOTRACES modelling, section and process studies that could be implemented, nationally and internationally, to address these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Helium isotopes (³He, 4He) are useful tracers for investigating the deep ocean circulation and for evaluating ocean general circulation models, because helium is a stable and conservative nuclide that does not take part in any chemical or biological process. Helium in the ocean originates from three different sources: namely, (i) gas dissolution in equilibrium with atmospheric helium, (ii) helium-3 addition by radioactive decay of tritium (called tritiugenic helium), and (iii) injection of terrigenic helium-3 and helium-4 by the submarine volcanic activity which occurs mainly at plate boundaries, and also addition of (mainly) helium-4 from the crust and sedimentary cover by α-decay of uranium and thorium contained in various minerals. We present the first simulation of the terrigenic helium isotope distribution in the whole Mediterranean Sea, using a high-resolution model (NEMO-MED12). For this simulation we build a simple source function for terrigenic helium isotopes based on published estimates of terrestrial helium fluxes. We estimate a hydrothermal flux of 3.5mol ³He yr-1 and a lower limit for the crustal flux at 1.6 10-7 mol 4He mol m-2 yr-1. In addition to providing constraints on helium isotope degassing fluxes in the Mediterranean, our simulations provide information on the ventilation of the deep Mediterranean waters which are useful for assessing NEMO-MED12 performance. This study is part of the work carried out to assess the robustness of the NEMO-MED12 model, which will be used to study the evolution of the climate and its effect on the biogeochemical cycles in the Mediterranean Sea, and to improve our ability to predict the future evolution of the Mediterranean Sea under the increasing anthropogenic pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of trace elements in the ocean is governed by the combined effects of various processes, and by exchanges with external sources. Modelling these represents an opportunity to better understand and quantify the mechanisms that regulate the oceanic tracer cycles. Observations collected during the GEOTRACES program provide an opportunity to improve our knowledge regarding processes that should be considered in biogeochemical models to adequately represent the distributions of trace elements in the ocean. Here we present a synthesis about the state of the art for simulating selected trace elements in biogeochemical models: Protactinium, Thorium, Iron and Aluminium. In this contribution we pay particular attention on the role of particles in the cycling of these tracers and how they may provide additional constraints on the transfer of matter in the ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of dissolved aluminium (Al) in the ocean is of interest because of its potential impact on diatom remineralisation and the use of surface ocean Al as a tracer for dust. Previously, the ocean Al concentration has been simulated reasonably well with only a dust source and scavenging as the removal process. In this study the simulation has been significantly improved by a more refined circulation and the addition of a sediment resuspension source. The latter confirms that the most significant sources of Al to the ocean are dust deposition and sediment resuspension. Simulations with biological incorporation have been performed as well. These show that this can be an important removal process. However, this study does not provide a definitive answer to the question what the relative amount of incorporation is compared to scavenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a state-of-the-art ocean general circulation and biogeochemistry model to examine the impact of changes in ocean circulation and biogeochemistry in governing the change in ocean carbon-13 and atmospheric CO2 at the last glacial maximum (LGM).We examine 5 different realisations of the ocean's overturning circulation produced by a fully coupled atmosphere-ocean model under LGM forcing and suggested changes in the atmospheric deposition of iron and phytoplankton physiology at the LGM. Measured changes in carbon-13 and carbon-14, as well as a qualitative reconstruction of the change in ocean carbon export are used to evaluate the results. Overall, we find that while a reduction in ocean ventilation at the LGM is necessary to reproduce carbon-13 and carbon-14 observations, this circulation results in a low net sink for atmospheric CO2. In contrast, while biogeochemical processes contribute little to carbon isotopes, we propose that most of the change in atmospheric CO2 was due to such factors. However, the lesser role for circulation means that when all plausible factors are accounted for, most of the necessary CO2 change remains to be explained. This presents a serious challenge to our understanding of the mechanisms behind changes in the global carbon cycle during the geologic past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decoupling of behaviour observed between Nd isotopic composition (Nd IC, also referred as ϵNd) and Nd concentration has led to the notion of a "Nd paradox". While ϵNd behaves in a quasi-conservative way in the open ocean, leading to its broad use as a water-mass tracer, Nd concentration displays vertical profiles that increase with depth together with a deep water enrichment along the global thermohaline circulation, non-conservative behaviour typical of nutrients affected by scavenging in surface waters and remineralisation at depth. In addition, recent studies suggested that the only way to reconcile both concentration and Nd IC oceanic budgets, is to invoke a "Bound ary Exchange" process (BE, defined as the co-occurrence of transfer of elements from the margin to the sea with removal of elements from the sea by Boundary Scavenging) as a source-sink term. However, these studies did not simulates the real input/output fluxes of Nd to the ocean, and therefore did prevent from crucial information to apprehend the "Nd paradox". In this study, we investigate this paradox on a global scale using for the first time a fully prognostic coupled dynamical/biogeochemical model and an explicit representation of the sources and sinks to simulate the Nd oceanic cycle. Sources considered are dissolved river fluxes, atmospheric dusts and margin sediment re-dissolution. Sinks are scavenging by settling particles. This model satisfyingly simulate the global Nd oceanic cycle, and produces realistic distribution of Nd concentration and isotopic composition, though a slight overestimation of Nd concentrations in the deep Pacific Ocean, likely revealing an underestimation of the particle fields by the biogeochemical model. Our results underlines that 1) vertical cycling (scavenging/remineralisation) is absolutely necessary to satisfyingly simulate both concentration and ϵNd, and 2) BE is the dominant Nd source to the ocean. The es timated BE flux (1.1×1010 g(Nd)/yr) is much higher than both dissolved river discharge (2.6×108 g(Nd)/yr) and atmospheric inputs (1.0×108 g(Nd)/yr) that play negligible role in the water column but are necessary to reconcile Nd IC in surface and subsurface. This leads to a recalculated residence time of Nd in the ocean of 360 yrs. The BE flux [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global-scale tracer simulations are typically made at coarse resolution without explicitly modelling eddies. Here we ask what role do eddies play in ocean uptake, storage, and meridional transport of transient tracers. We made global anthropogenic transient-tracer simulations in coarse-resolution (2° cos φ × 2°, ORCA2) and eddypermitting ( ½° cos φ×½°, ORCA05) versions of the ocean general circulation model OPA9. Our focus is on surfaceto- intermediate waters of the southern extratropics where air-sea tracer fluxes, tracer storage, and meridional tracer transport are largest. Eddies have little effect on global and regional bomb Δ14C uptake and storage. Yet for anthropogenic CO2 and CFC-11, refining the horizontal resolution reduced southern extratropical uptake by 25% and 28%, respectively. There is a similar decrease in corresponding inventories, which yields better agreement with observations. With higher resolution, eddies strengthen upper ocean vertical stratification and reduce excessive ventilation of intermediate waters by 20% between 60° S and 40° S. By weakening the residual circulation, i.e., the sum of Eulerian mean flow and the opposed eddy-induced flow, eddies reduce the supply of tracer-impoverished deep waters to the surface near the Antarctic divergence, thus reducing the air-sea tracer flux. Thus in the eddy permitting model, surface waters in that region have more time to equilibrate with the atmosphere before they are transported northward and subducted. As a result, the eddy permitting model's inventories of CFC- 11 and anthropogenic CO2 are lower in that region because mixed-layer concentrations of both tracers equilibrate with the atmosphere on relatively short time scales (15 days and 6 months, respectively); conversely, bombΔ14C's air-sea equilibration time of 6 years is so slow that, even in the eddy permitting model, there is little time for surface concentrationsto equilibrate with the atmosphere, i.e., before surface waters are subducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results are presented of export production, dissolved organic matter (DOM) and dissolved oxygen simulated by 12 global ocean models participating in the second phase of the Ocean Carbon-cycle Model Intercomparison Project. A common, simple biogeochemical model is utilized in different coarse-resolution ocean circulation models. The model mean (±1σ) downward flux of organic matter across 75 m depth is 17 ± 6 Pg C yr-1. Model means of globally averaged particle export, the fraction of total export in dissolved form, surface semilabile dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and seasonal net outgassing (SNO) of oxygen are in good agreement with observation-based estimates, but particle export and surface DOC are too high in the tropics. There is a high sensitivity of the results to circulation, as evidenced by (1) the correlation of surface DOC and export with circulation metrics, including chlorofluorocarbon inventory and deep-ocean radiocarbon, (2) very large intermodel differences in Southern Ocean export, and (3) greater export production, fraction of export as DOM, and SNO in models with explicit mixed layer physics. However, deep-ocean oxygen, which varies widely among the models, is poorly correlated with other model indices. Cross-model means of several biogeochemical metrics show better agreement with observation-based estimates when restricted to those models that best simulate deep-ocean radiocarbon. Overall, the results emphasize the importance of physical processes in marine biogeochemical modeling and suggest that the development of circulation models can be accelerated by evaluating them with marine biogeochemical metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]