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- Title
Atmospheric deposition of organic matter at a remote site in the Central Mediterranean Sea: implications for marine ecosystem.
- Authors
Galletti, Yuri; Becagli, Silvia; di Sarra, Alcide; Gonnelli, Margherita; Pulido-Villena, Elvira; Sferlazzo, Damiano M.; Traversi, Rita; Vestri, Stefano; Santinelli, Chiara
- Abstract
Atmospheric fluxes of dissolved organic matter (DOM) were studied for the first time at the Island of Lampedusa, a remote site in the Central Mediterranean Sea (Med Sea), close to the Sahara desert, between 19 March 2015 and 1 April 2017. The main goals of this work are: to quantify total atmospheric deposition of DOM in this area and to evaluate the impact of dust deposition on DOM dynamics in the surface waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Our data show high variability in DOM deposition rates without a clear seasonality and allow to estimate a dissolved organic carbon (DOC) input from the atmosphere of 120.7mmolDOCm-2yr-1. Over the entire time-series, the average dissolved organic phosphorous (DOP) and dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) contributions to the total dissolved pools were 40% and 26%, respectively. The data on atmospheric elemental ratios also show that each deposition event is characterized by a specific elemental ratio, suggesting a high variability in DOM composition and the presence of multiple sources. This study indicates that the organic substances transported by Saharan dust at Lampedusa site mainly have natural origin, especially from sea spray and that Saharan dust can be an important carrier of organic substances, even if the load of DOC associated with dust is highly variable. Our estimates suggest that atmospheric input has an impact to the Med Sea larger than to the global ocean and that DOC fluxes from the atmosphere to the Med Sea can be up to 6-fold larger than river input. Longer time series, combined with a modelling effort, are therefore mandatory in order to investigate the response of DOM dynamics in the Med Sea to the change in aerosol deposition pattern due to the effect of climate change.
- Subjects
SAHARA; ATMOSPHERIC deposition; MARINE ecology; DISSOLVED organic matter; ORGANIC compounds; SURFACE dynamics; SEAS
- Publication
Biogeosciences Discussions, 2020, p1
- ISSN
1810-6277
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5194/bg-2020-14