After months of preparations, the Open Science Conference on Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS): Past, Present and Future & Second International Conference on the Humboldt Current System was finally held in Lima, Peru, from 19-23 September 2022, gathering stakeholders and representatives of the inter- and multidisciplinary ocean and atmospheric science communities from all over the world.
The programme of the conference was organised along three thematic axes, under the framework of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030):
Ocean physics and associated biogeochemical processes in relation to climate variability and climate change.
Living resources, fisheries and adaptations to environmental variability.
Socio-ecological vulnerability to climate change and extreme events.
CHASE members Catarina V. Guerreiro (MARE-UL & IDL/FCUL) and Jan-Berend Stuut (NIOZ/ VU) were the conveners of Session 7 (Axis 1) aimed at “Understanding the driving factors of marine productivity in EBUS”. They also presented their research on particle flux variability across the tropical North Atlantic, including a region known to be influenced by the Canary Current EBUS.
Catarina Guerreiro and Jan-Berend co-hosting Session 7 on “Understanding the drivers of marine productivity in EBUS”, at the Open Science Conference on EBUS.
The main lecture hall of the conference at the "Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia", in Lima, Peru.
During their presentations, Catarina and Jan-Berend draw attention to the role of atmospheric dust deposition as a potential driver of the biological carbon pump in EBUS that are bordered by drylands and deserts (e.g., Canary, Benguela) in addition to wind-forced ocean circulation processes, both as a source of fertilising nutrients and of mineral ballast.
Catarina presenting her talk titled “Drivers of coccolithophore CaCO3 export production between NW Africa and the Caribbean: implications for the biological carbon pump”, reporting on particle flux data collected from trap sites CB and M1 located in a region which is influenced both by the Canary Current EBUS and by some of the largest atmospheric dust inputs of the global ocean, linked to the Saharan Desert region [Guerreiro et al., 2021].
Jan-Berend Stuut presenting his work on “Monitoring present-day Saharan dust above & below the Northwest African EBUS (2017-2018)”, during the poster session. Based on a remarkably high (four-day) temporal resolution of particle flux data collected at trap site M1, Stuut et al. show how primary productivity is highly likely to be influenced by dust input, in addition to wind-forced upwelling.
Based on his excellent and internationally recognized work investigating marine primary production and the dynamics of EBUS-related pelagic ecosystems, it was our great pleasure when Javier Arístegui (ULPGC) accepted to be the main speaker of our session. In addition to presenting his work on the “Mismatch between primary production, chlorophyll and nutrients’ availability in a Peruvian coastal upwelling: constraints for modelling primary production”, Javier also presented PRIMUS (PRIMary productivity in Upwelling Systems) to the international EBUS community. PRIMUS is an ESA-funded project led by PML in which we also are leading an Earth Science Case to compare particle flux data produced by mineralising phytoplankton (including coccolithophores) at trap sites CB and M1 with primary production data from remote sensing, using both standard and Lagrangian frameworks. The goal is to build on the work presented by Catarina at the conference, towards attempting at distinguishing the effects of upwelling- from dust-driven primary production in this important and “heavily dusty” EBUS region.
Javier Arístegui presenting project PRIMUS to the international scientific community. Javier is Full Professor of Ecology at ULPGC, director of the Canaries Observatory of Harmful Algae, associate member of the SCOR WG155 and co-chair of the SCOR WG 161. He has been investigating the dynamics of pelagic ecosystems for over 30 years, including plankton ecology and ecophysiology, microbial oceanography, biogeochemistry, and the effects of climate-change stressors on planktonic communities. Among his several achievements, Javier has contributed to the IPCC Report chapter “Oceans” (2014) and to the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (2017-2019), and awarded the “Helmholtz International Fellow Award” by the German Association of Research Centres of Excellence (Helmholtz Association).
After a week of intensive scientific exchange of results and ideas, the participants gathered in the conference's main lecture hall to outline the major conclusions and recommendations from each session regarding the improvement of EBUS studies and its subsequent management. Using in situ multi-proxy time-series data was referred to be crucial for gaining an integrated perspective on biogeochemical processes in EBUS and their seasonality, and to improve the accuracy of algorithms used by satellites to measure the color of the ocean. Among the main conclusions was the current underestimation and understudy of the effects of desert dust acting both as a major source of nutrients for Atlantic phytoplankton, and as source of mineral ballast to facilitate the export and sequestration of carbon to deep ocean. It was overall consensual that understanding the role of desert dust as a driver of the biological carbon pump in EBUS is particularly important to understand the ecological dynamics of phytoplankton communities in the “dusty” tropical Atlantic Ocean, given its proximity to the world’s largest and most active source of atmospheric dust in NW Africa.
Main conclusions and recommendations drawn from Session 7 in the last day of the Open Science Conference on EBUS.
After the meeting, Catarina and Jan-Berend travelled a few days through Peru to visit and sample two major deserts in the region of Ica, which are known to emit dust into the Pacific Ocean. If you want to know more about our recent amazing adventures through Peru, click here! 🙂
